The Swine Flu has spread in the United States with about 100 confirmed cases in over 10 states. There has even been one confirmed death. These are still very small numbers. Keep in mind that the CDC estimated that about 36,000 people died of flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the [...]
Archive | April, 2009
Arthur Nadel Indicted
Florida fund manager Arthur Nadel was indicted Tuesday on criminal charges for allegedly soliciting hundreds of millions of dollars in investor money under false pretenses and misappropriating client funds. Mr. Nadel, 76 years old, was charged in a 15-count indictment with mail fraud, securities fraud and wire fraud. “It’s a much more complex story than [...]
Privacy Notices – Testing Effectiveness
Its great that regulators come up with privacy disclosure forms, but are they effective? The Securities and Exchange Commission has reopened the period for public comment on proposed amendments to Regulation S-P, which implements the privacy provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. [15 U.S.C. §§6801 - 6809] They opened back up for comment because they tested [...]
IRS Notice 2009-38 on Section 382 For Acquisition of Instruments Issued by Recipients of TARP Funds
The Internal Revenue Service issued Notice 2009-38 (.pdf) to provide guidance when instruments are acquired by the Treasury Department under the Capital Purchase Program of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (“EESA”) and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”). The issue arose because of the massive amount of securities being acquired by the Treasury. If those [...]
Corporate Blogs and Tweets Must Keep SEC in Mind
Richard Brewer-Hay made it into the Wall Street Journal and even got his photograph included. Who is he? He is part of the next wave of investor relations professionals who are using web 2.0 tools to provide investors with company information. In 2008, Richard started using a blog as part of eBay’s investor relations: eBay [...]
Swine Flu, Disaster Recovery, and Compliance
One aspect of a compliance program is disaster recovery. Investors want to know that your operations can be up and running if something goes wrong. Although first thoughts go to an extraordinary event like the World Trade Center attacks, the problem is more likely to be something less dramatic. From today’s headlines, it may be [...]
Moral Hazard and Structural Compliance
I have been tossing around the concept of structural compliance in my head. The idea is to focus on the alignment of employee incentives with the long term goals of the organization. Jeff Kaplan forwarded me an article he wrote for the April 2009 issue of CCH’s Federal Ethics Report: Boards of Directors, Moral Hazard [...]
Weekend Book Review – The Nine
You would expect a book about the inner workings of the United States Supreme Court to be dry and boring. I did, which is why this book has been sitting unread in my book pile for months. Surprise! I found this book to be very interesting and entertaining. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of [...]
Coming Attractions – Frontline Reports on Madoff
Next month, Frontline is running a report about Bernard Madoff on a PBS station near you. The episode premiers the week of May 12. “Bernard Madoff’s success as a broker made the competition wonder how the man could produce such steady returns in good times and bad. The SEC investigated several times over the last [...]
Corresponding with Cornelius
Here are some of my recent comments on some other blogs or other websites that allow comments. Part of the new changes in the internet is the ability for readers to engage writers and other readers of their stories. I am happy to have you leave comments at Compliance Building. But if not here, take [...]
