Regulatory Enforcement

One year ago, the United Kingdom was playing a leading role in European efforts to crack down on companies paying bribes to overseas officials. The government brought new legislation to Parliament, put a minister in charge of the problem, and created a task force to boost police resources. Most importantly, it was pursuing a high-profile […]

Suddenly, it seems that bribery is not the business practice it used to be in Europe. Credit the scandal of Siemens AG, the German manufacturing giant whose image has been tarred by possible bribery in its telecommunications department. The drumbeat of bad news around Siemens—which first erupted in November, with police raids and the arrest […]

Compliance professionals play many roles—adviser, educator, and auditor, to name a few. Now, recent, well-publicized potential lapses in compliance have highlighted another role: prognosticator. DETAILS Long Brady Long was named chief compliance officer of Pride International, a worldwide drilling contractor with revenues of $2.5 billion, in June 2006. In January 2007, he was also named […]

In one of the first whistleblower suits under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to reach court, a federal judge in New York has raised some eyebrows by allowing the plaintiff to proceed to trial—and striking some potentially ominous tones for corporate defendants. Whistleblower lawsuits are still largely an unexplored part of Sarbanes-Oxley. The law clearly allows protections […]

The ghost of insider trading investigations may be haunting the corporate landscape again these days, but judicious use of a “Rule 10b5-1 plan” to sell stock can still provide solid protection for executives who want to avoid the specter of a visit from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The chief of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, […]

A Florida appellate court has thrown out a jury award of nearly $1.6 billion—including $850 million in punitive damages—to billionaire Ronald Perelman in his lawsuit blaming investment bank Morgan Stanley for financial losses he incurred after receiving stock that later proved worthless in the sale of a camping-equipment company. The trial judge had earlier whacked […]

The liability of so-called “secondary actors”—the investment banks, vendors, and others who might help a company commit securities fraud—is taking center stage in the courtroom these days. Though Compliance Week has covered this issue extensively over the past few years (see box below, right), the topic has again risen to the forefront in recent weeks, […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission raised a few eyebrows recently when it filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt an extremely tough standard that plaintiffs would have to meet when they try to sue public companies for fraud. Although some lawyers defend the SEC’s decision to file the brief, others question […]