Bob Ivry, Saijel Kishan and Ian Katz look into their crystal ball at Bloomberg: Hedge Funds Concede Oversight Inevitability in Wake of Madoff. Narrowing the exemptions from registration under the Investment Advisers Act? More whisteblower protection? Segregation of the investment advisory and custody roles? More disclosure requirements? Minimum capital standards? Borrowing ratio limitations?
Archive | December, 2008
Real Estate Development and Corruption
Wicked Local Newton is reporting that the Maynard, Massachusetts superintendent of public works was arrested for soliciting cash payments from a private developer in exchange for relaxing permitting and inspection requirements: Maynard public works chief, a Newton resident, charged with accepting bribes. Paul Camilli, 38, of Newton, let an unnamed developer know that he would [...]
Does Your D&O Policy Cover Criminal Investigations?
Kevin M. LaCroix of The D&O Diary weighs in on coverage of criminal investigations: D&O Insurance: Corporate Criminal Investigations. He references a December 2008 article by Patricia Bronte of Jenner & Block entitled D&O Coverage for Corporate Criminal Investigations (.pdf). The main issue is how your policy defines “criminal conduct.” Some policies defines it with [...]
Hedging Risk In Real Estate
Neal Elkin of PIonline.com writes in A Better Way To Hedge Risk In Real Estate: “What if institutional investors, while increasing their allocations to both residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, had been able to hedge their exposure to the underlying collateral?” The author looks at some of real estate based indexes tracking U.S. property prices [...]
Insider Trading and Family Betrayal
Bruce Carton put together a collection of insider trading enforcement actions involving family betrayal: The Five Levels of Familial Betrayal, SEC Edition.
At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item
The New York Times ran an in-depth look at how entrenched corruption had become at the multi-national corporation: At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item. For his part, Mr. Siekaczek is uncertain about the impact of the Siemens case. After all, he said, bribery and corruption are still widespread.“People will only say about Siemens [...]
ACFE Report to the Nation Occupational Fraud and Abuse
According to research conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), U.S. organizations lose an estimated 7 percent of annual revenues to fraud. Based on the projected U.S. Gross Domestic Product for 2008, this percentage indicates a staggering estimate of losses around $994 billion among organizations, despite increased emphasis on anti-fraud controls and recent [...]
Institutional Investors Taking A Proactive Stance With President- Elect Obama
A group of 60 institutional investors send a letter to President-Elect Obama. More than 60 institutional investors were signatories to this letter encouraging President-Elect Obama to improve financial risk disclosures by U.S. corporations. The letter encourages President-Elect Obama to Work in First 100 Days to Reverse Recent SEC Roadblocks to Shareholder Proxy Resolutions Inquiring About [...]
The Corporate Risk Management Library
Here are my notes from this webinar from Compliance Week, sponsored by CA, Inc.: Enhancing the Risk Profile of Your Organization: The Corporate Risk Management Library Speakers: Tom McHale, Vice President of Product Management, CA Christopher Fox, Principal Consultant, Governance Compliance and Risk Group, CA We are seeing a movement from executive autonomy to executive [...]
Government Seizes 650 Park Avenue
According to the Wall Street Journal, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has filed a forfeiture proceeding against 650 Fifth Avenue in New York. In its press release: United States files civil forfeiture action against ASSA corporation’s interest in Manhattan office tower (.pdf), the DOJ claims that a 40% interest [...]
