News

How you reimburse mobile workers could put you at risk

Compliance lessons from Trump’s business dilemmas

A post-election perspective on financial regulatory compliance

The many compliance lessons of Wells Fargo

Editorial: Getting Down to Business

Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Joe McCafferty, and I’m the newly named deputy editor of Compliance Week.

Editorial: The Case for Governance Laws: Slow, Tortuous—and Worthwhile

I have long argued on these pages that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as irritating as it may be for corporate compliance and financial reporting executives, achieves its intended goal: to reduce the frequency of financial restatements that harm the investing public. We first saw evidence along those lines in 2007, when the total number of restatements began to fall for companies that were complying with SOX. Back then, however, Corporate America was still screaming about the skyrocketing fees it had to pay to external auditors. Regulators adjusted their rules for SOX compliance so auditors would be less outrageous with their demands (and, consequently, their fees).

Editorial: Compliance Newcomer Teaches the Basics

Early one Friday afternoon last month, I had the opportunity to meet a newly minted chief compliance officer. She had been in the job only one month, was passing through town, and wanted to talk about the current events in compliance over lunch. We settled into a restaurant near my office and began chatting.

Editorial: SOX Gets Defeated, and That’s It?

Many years ago, T.S. Eliot closed his poem “The Hollow Men” with this famous, haunting stanza: “This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”

The Need for Standards in Accounting Control Frameworks

When the Securities and Exchange Commission first published guidance on how to comply with the infamous Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires companies to assess and disclose the strength of their internal control over financial reporting, the agency pointed to the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations’ 1992-era Internal Control-Integrated Framework as an example of a “suitable” control assessment framework. At the time, the agency did also state that other control frameworks met its suitability criteria, but the strong endorsement of the SEC (and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) has resulted in the now-dated COSO framework becoming, for all intents and purposes, the only official control criteria public companies use to assess the effectiveness of their accounting controls.

Editorial: Reflections on Compliance Week 2010

Well, the Compliance Week 2010 conference is now done. The event was excellent, and credit belongs to all the attendees, speakers, and helpers who altogether made our 2010 conference the largest and most successful we’ve ever had. We have extensive coverage of the event in this month’s magazine, but let me also share a few thoughts here.

How Revised Sentencing Guidelines Impact CCOs

Earlier this month, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to propose revisions to Chapter 8 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The amendments (which will go into effect in November, unless Congress votes to rescind them) focus on how compliance professionals report to the audit committee of a company’s board of directors, and the company’s response to uncovering criminal conduct—including hiring an outside adviser to examine the compliance program.

Editorial: The Regulator Dilemma: No Right Answer

As you can see from our front page this month, Compliance Week recently hosted another editorial roundtable—this time looking particularly at compliance challenges in the life sciences sector. We don’t usually do that; every industry has its own unique compliance burdens that don’t carry much significance for other industries, and in a sector as highly regulated as the drug business, you’d expect that isolation to be especially so.

Editorial: A Tale of Two Troubles

As you have already seen from the cover of this month’s magazine, Compliance Week and Crowe Horwath recently hosted an editorial roundtable about every compliance and financial reporting executive’s favorite topic: fraud.

Doing Business in Europe? Know Your Competition Law

A senior business leader recently gave me high praise—for the compliance business, at least. “You’ve done a great job brainwashing us about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” he said. “Now you have to do the same with EU Competition Law.”

Editorial: Hope, Compliance Spring Eternal

Every spring I write an editorial announcing the lineup of our annual Compliance Week lineup. As you might imagine, last year’s conference, in the shadow of recession and financial crisis, had a touch of gallows humor to the whole affair.

Editorial: More Intelligent Tone at the Top

Shortly after that Nigerian nitwit tried to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, I was listening to a talk radio program discussing the federal government’s response and all the new security procedures airline passengers will inevitably be asked to endure: more questioning at the security checkpoint, less freedom of movement on the plane, full-body frisks, millimeter-wave scans peering under your clothes. The host of the program asked her guests, “Will citizens of the United States really put up with procedures so invasive?”

Editorial: Everything Old Is New Again

Well, that was quite a decade.

Editorial: The Myth of the Black Swan

Perhaps it’s time to start shooting those black swans.

Wisdom of Corporate Compliance, Even in Government

This past October, two victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission. Their complaint: shoddy oversight and controls at the SEC let Madoff continue his fraud for years, despite numerous warnings and tips.

Editorial: Anatomy of an FCPA Violation

So I may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act while I was on vacation recently.

Editorial: CW Hosts First Virtual Governance Conference

I am big a fan of the printed page and the in-person gathering. This month, however, we’re going virtual.

Editorial: How’s Your Global Integrity These Days?

By now you’ve probably noticed something strange about this month’s magazine: It

Editorial: No Fairy Tale Ending for Economic Woes

Once upon a time, the United States had a crisis. Our financial system collapsed; our investment funds were exposed as Ponzi schemes; stock prices cratered; and unemployment soared. Times were grim. So the United States did what it always does in crisis, when all other hopes have failed and no other choice remains: It put the Democrats in charge.

Editorial: Compliance Week 2009: The Post-Game Wrap-Up

Our annual conference last month was a whirlwind of activity. As usual, seeing our compliance readers in person and hearing leaders in compliance thoughts “live” was a tremendously re-energizing experience. For those who didn’t attend, you can see photos and coverage of the event in our special conference section in the July print edition on pages 36-44. I, however, am going to fire off some random observations here …

Editorial: Enforcement: The Next Big Wave

It’s the primary axiom of corporate compliance: A new rule emerges over the horizon, companies ignore it until the rule’s arrival is imminent, and then they panic and