The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to propose measures that would require public companies to disclose additional information to investors about their short-term borrowing arrangements. The proposals would require “a registrant to provide, in a separately captioned subsection of Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, a comprehensive explanation of its … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for September 17
Here are some recent compliance-related stories that I found interesting: Fighting to Protect Consumers by Elizabeth Warren in the Huffington Post The president asked me, and I enthusiastically agreed, to serve as an Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He has also … Read more »
Integrity, Morality, and Ethics
I always struggle with definitions of ethics and morality. Michael Jensen, of Harvard Business School throws integrity into the mix of terms. Here are his definitions: Integrity: A state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, in perfect condition. Ethics: In a given group, ethics is the agreed upon standards of what is … Read more »
Europe’s Approach to Derivatives Regulation
With this summer’s passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, it’s Europe’s turn to address financial regulation. This morning, the European Commission released its Proposal for Regulation on OTC Derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories. The proposal seems to look a lot like the Dodd-Frank’s approach by creating a central trade … Read more »
The New Face of Evil?
His crime was simple: collect money from investors, fake the returns, pocket the money, and repeat. His crime was the biggest: $20 billion in cash plus $45 billion of fake returns. Should Bernie Madoff be the new name for evil? Christine Hurt of University of Illinois College of Law contrasts Madoff with the original Ponzi … Read more »
Michael Lewis, Greece, and Corruption
Michael Lewis has moved from Wall Street, to baseball, the left tackle, Iceland, the credit collapse and on to Greece. He takes a look at Greece’s financial crisis in the October issue of Vanity Fair: Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds. One issue is the debt hangover. Greece has about $400 billion in outstanding government debt … Read more »
How About Working for SEC Enforcement?
The Dodd-Frank Act has created some new positions and some long occupied seats have opened up at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Maybe you have the skills to help the SEC? Yes, the SEC dropped in the rankings of best federal workplace, slipping from 3rd in 2007 to 24th in 2010. I suspect that reflects … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for September 10
It’s back-to-school week for me (well … my kids). That means summer is over and time to re-focus on good compliance and ethics. Here are some stories on those topics that popped up recently: Boards of directors: Clueless, but not criminal, mostly by Matt Kranz in USA Today Directors are rarely charged with fraud. The … Read more »
We Have Video of Barney Frank Arguing With a Dining Room Table
After pushing through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Barney Frank now needs to run for re-election. He is not running unopposed in the Democrat primary, but the opposition is … “interesting.” Barney is the congressman for my district, so I have voted for him in the past and plan to vote … Read more »
Ethics Upgrade at Oracle?
I’m not sure what to make of Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard, Larry Ellison, and Oracle. HP threw Hurd out on the street for some stupid behavior. By throwing out on the street, I mean let him keep most of his compensation package. Larry Ellison immediately came to his defense. He even went a step further and … Read more »