What if our moral judgments are simply that a situation makes us feel like throwing up? Drake Bennett explores some of the new research and thinking in how our moral ideas may have evolved from our more visceral feelings of disgust in Ewwwwwwwww! The surprising moral force of disgust. The moral emotions model has another [...]
Archive | August, 2010
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
Niall Ferguson had the unfortunate luck of writing The Ascent of Money just before the unveiling of the 2008′s Great Panic. At the time he finished writing the book in May 2008, only $318 billion of write-downs had been acknowledged. I was interested in the book because of its focus on the development of our [...]
Compliance Bits and Pieces: Mark Hurd Special
Last Friday, the big news in compliance was the sudden resignation of Mark Hurd as the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Hewlett-Packard. I decided to put together a compilation of other stories I found interesting. HP and me: Coincidence or not? by Michelle Leder in Footnoted Of course, footnoted had done its own [...]
Changes to the Qualified Client Standard
In addition to the changing standard for an accredited investor, the standard for a “qualified client” under the Investment Advisers Act is also changing. Section 418 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires the SEC to increase the standard. SEC. 418. QUALIFIED CLIENT STANDARD. Section 205(e) of the Investment Advisers Act [...]
Be the Mayor, not the Sheriff
Are you getting in the way or helping to move your organization forward? Inevitably, compliance professional will need to step in and stop an activity or start a discipline process for someone who broke the rules. That does not have to be the primary focus of the your job, or the compliance profession. Frank Sheeder, [...]
How Does Your Hotline Compare?
Does your hotline ring off the hook with complaints? Is it silent? Are the complaints mostly that the employee thinks his boss is a jerk? The Network and BDO Consulting published their 2010 Corporate Governance and Compliance Hotline Benchmarking Report. The 2010 report provides an analysis of compilation of more than 500,000 reports from over [...]
Mixed Messages from H-P
On Friday, Hewlett-Packard fired its CEO because he violated the company’s code of conduct. Mark Hurd had submitted inaccurate expense reports. That sounds like a good message from the Board. Anyone can be fired for violating the code. However, Mr. Hurd was given a severance package that may be worth more than $35 million, including [...]
Compliance Bits and Pieces for August 6
Here are some recent stories that I found interesting: The FCPA’s Long Tentacles by FCPA Professor One reason is that mere existence of an FCPA inquiry can significantly throw a wrench into a company’s ability to sell itself. Another reason is that mere existence of an FCPA inquiry can cause an analyst to downgrade a [...]
SEC Finally Catches Up With Former Deloitte Vice Chairman
Back in November, 2008, Deloitte sued its former vice chairman for trading in securities of the firm’s audit clients. The SEC has filed its case against Thomas Flanagan and included his son, Patrick Flanagan. The SEC alleged Flanagan traded in the securities of multiple Deloitte clients on the basis of inside information that he learned [...]
Dealing with Losses From the Madoff Fraud
One of the many repercussions of the Madoff fraud is how to treat investors who had money in his Ponzi scheme. There has been plenty written about how the trustee is treating the direct investors. He is only treating net cash. If you took out more cash than you put in, you are on the [...]
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