All Enforcement articles – Page 5
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Blog
SEC Charges BDO USA, Partners for Misleading Audit Opinions
The SEC has charged audit firm BDO USA with issuing false and misleading unqualified audit opinions about the financial statements of staffing services company General Employment Enterprises. BDO agreed to admit wrongdoing, pay disgorgement of its audit fees and interest totaling approximately $600,000, and pay a $1.5 million penalty. Details ...
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Blog
FDIC Hits Comenity Banks Over Deceptive Credit Card Add-Ons
The FDIC has settled with Delaware-based Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank of Salt Lake City for deceptive practices relating to the marketing of credit card add-on products. Comenity Bank will pay a civil money penalty of $2 million and provide $53 million in restitution to harmed consumers. ...
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Blog
Oh Craps: Caesar’s Palace Fined $8M for Lax AML Controls
Caesar’s Palace will pay an $8 million penalty for poor money laundering controls that apparently let wealthy clienete gamble millions of dollars in a single visit, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The AML compliance holes let the high-rollers use front money instead of their own, thwarting recordkeeping and ...
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Blog
Trade Group Pushes Guidelines for CCO Enforcement Actions
Image: The National Society of Compliance Professionals has written to Andrew Ceresney, director of enforcement at the SEC, urging that compliance officers not be subject to enforcement actions except in cases where a CCO exhibited reckless conduct or knowingly assisted the primary violator. The letter is the latest salvo ...
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Blog
SEC Action Suggests Focus on Valuations, Experts Say
A new study from valuation firm NERA Consulting suggests that the SEC is renewing its interest in pursuing valuation-related accounting issues. The findings are based on an enforcement action against Miller Energy Resources and certain officers for inflating oil property values. “Reporting entities are well advised to make full disclosures ...
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Article
The Current State of SEC Whistleblower Guidance
The SEC’s latest guidance on whistleblower protection, confirming that employees need not report misconduct first to the SEC to win anti-retaliation protections, seems at first glance to be good news for internal compliance programs. For corporations as a whole, less so. Inside, we take a deeper look at the limits ...
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Blog
On the Death of Cecil the Lion and the FCPA
By now most everyone knows that in July, U.S. citizen and big game hunter Walter Palmer traveled to Zimbabwe and then shot and killed Cecil the Lion, a protected animal. What does that have to do with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Quite a lot, columnist Tom Fox notes. This ...
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Blog
SEC Alleges Accounting Fraud at Miller Energy Resources
The Securities and Exchange Commission is alleging that the former chief financial officer and current chief operating officer of Miller Energy Resources, an oil and natural gas production company, inflated values of oil and gas properties, resulting in fraudulent financial reports for the Tennessee-based company. The audit team leader ...
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Mead Johnson Nutrition Pays $12M for FCPA Violations in China
Mead Johnson Nutrition will pay $12.03 million to settle civil charges that it violated books and records requirements of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when a China-based unit made improper payments at state-owned hospitals. The settlement, the result of an administrative proceeding, was detailed in an Offer of Settlement the ...
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Blog
FINRA Fines Goldman Sachs $1.8M for Trade Reporting Failures
Goldman Sachs Group has agreed to pay $1.8 million to resolve allegations by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that one of its units failed to accurately submit required trade reports, filed inaccurate trading data for more than eight years, and did not have adequate systems and controls in place ...
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Blog
Fiat Chrysler Will Pay $150M, Largest Ever NHTSA Penalty
Acknowledging violations of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act’s requirements to repair safety defects, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has agreed to a $105 million civil penalty, the largest ever imposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The automaker agreed to an independent monitor, approved by the NHTSA and in place for ...
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Blog
White: SEC Enforcement Not Targeting Compliance Professionals
Image: The message from SEC Chairman Mary Jo White to compliance officers: They are not the target of enforcement efforts. Speaking to 1,000 compliance officers from financial services firms and broker-dealers at a Commission-sponsored forum, White said, “We do not bring cases based on second guessing compliance officers’ good faith ...
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Blog
The Overlooked Lessons of PetroTiger Trial
The corruption trials against three former executives of PetroTiger ended with a whimper in June, when the last defendant pled guilty to FCPA violations. Contrary to what many say, however, the PetroTiger case offered some valuable—and good—news for compliance officers. This week, columnist Tom Fox reviews how the company avoided ...
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Blog
Prosecutors Search Deutsche Bank Head Offices in Tax Fraud Probe
Deutsche Bank took another blow this week after law enforcement officials searched the bank’s headquarters amid suspicions of tax fraud relating to client securities transactions. The practice, known as “dividend stripping,” has once again placed the largest German lender under the regulatory spotlight. Details inside.
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Article
New ‘Blacklisting’ Rules Have Contractors in Uproar
Image: Uncle Sam is poised to impose sweeping new reporting obligations on government contractors to disclose labor law violations for the prior three years. Trade associations are spitting nails over the rules, but meanwhile, compliance officers have yet another reporting risk that needs process and attention. “You don’t want a ...
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Blog
SEC Settles Fraud Charges at Tech Firm
Computer Science Corp. has agreed to pay $190 million to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company and former executives concealed from investors problems with a high-profile client and manipulated financial results, in addition to fudging with accounting at overseas units.
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Blog
SEC Sues Bulgarian Trader for EDGAR-Assisted Avon Stock Scheme
The SEC says it knows who was behind fake tender offers posted to its EDGAR database and is suing the Bulgarian man it claims is responsible. On June 4, the Commission filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against Nedko Nedev and firms he was associated with. He allegedly masterminded ...
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Ex-Wells Fargo CEO Slams ‘Absurd’ Compliance Spending
Image: Is the compliance ramp-up at big banks to blame for layoffs, including the 5,000 of them announced last month by JPMorgan? Richard Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo, seems to think so. “It is absurd that [banks] are investing that kind of money on compliance” he said of growing ...
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Article
The Real State of CCO Legal Liability
A compliance mishap in a company can feel like a professional failure to chief compliance officers; a more urgent question is whether it might also bring professional liability. At Compliance Week 2015, enforcement officials with the SEC and Justice Department, as well as compliance professionals themselves, explored how CCOs can ...
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Blog
The SEC Views on Whistleblowers: Sit Up and Listen
Whistleblowers—protecting them, working with them, not stifling them—continue to be one of the most important parts of the compliance officer’s job. This week, columnist Tom Fox reviews the SEC’s recent pronouncements on how it wants whistleblowers to be treated and how the SEC itself plans to keep encouraging whistleblowers to ...