House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) issued the following statement on the passage of the Financial Stability Bill: “I congratulate Senator Dodd on an impressive act of legislative leadership, and I also congratulate Majority Leader Reid for pushing this through. The two bills are very similar, and the House is ready to go … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for May 21
Here are some compliance related stories that caught my eye recently: The annotated MBA oath by Alex Beam in the Boston Globe How does a pledge of honor fit into today’s business world? Just read between the lines. FCPA Red Flags, Hewlett-Packard and Big Papi by Tom Fox Recently, commentator and former big league manager, … Read more »
Martindale-Hubbell Connected Redesign
Lexis-Nexis gave a sneak peak of some upcoming changes to their Martindale- Hubbell Connected social network site for lawyers. They cleaned up the user interface, with new colors, improved navigation and improved searching. The current Connected site has been a disappointment. I have a lot of hope for the site because it has the financial … Read more »
Compliance Week 2010. Will you be there?
Next week I will in Washington, D.C. attending Compliance Week’s Fifth Annual Conference. Let me know if you are attending. [email protected] Read more »
Update on the Social Media Policies Database
My social media policies database is now up to 162 policies. I troll the internet periodically to add new policies as they become public. If you are looking to draft your own social media policy, the policies in the database are a good place to start. Currently they are organized into these industries Education (5) … Read more »
Dodd Bill, Private Placements and Accredited Investors
I previously wrote about how the Restoring American Financial Stability Act being tossed around in the Senate could affect private investment funds by changing the definition of accredited investor and altering the process for a Regulation D private placement. It looks like much of that is going to be wiped out of the bill. Senate … Read more »
Private Investment Funds and Form 5500 Schedule C
If you have ERISA plan investors in your private investment fund you should know that they have new reporting requirements this year. There is a new rule that requires greatly expanded disclosure of monetary and non-monetary compensation paid by the ERISA plan. On Schedule C to Form 5500, the plan will need to identify any … Read more »
Cash, Ash or Crash – Nobody Rides for Free
Iceland has been a sources of trouble. In October of 2008 their banking system crashed after ill-advised over-expansion. Proportionally, Iceland’s financial meltdown made the US failure look quaint. The three biggest banks in Iceland, a country of only 310,000, made loans totaling over 850% of Iceland’s Gross Domestic Product. In April, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted … Read more »
Interact 2010:Governing Social Media
The folks at Mitratech were nice enough to send me to Miami to talk at their annual Interact 2010 conference to talk about social media and compliance. This was the session description: Governing Social Media: How to Monitor, Manage and Make the Most of Employee Use of Social Media Doug Cornelius, Chief Compliance Officer, Beacon … Read more »
Interact Conference
I’m in Miami today for Interact 2010. I will try to post my notes from some of the sessions. Here is my agenda for the day: Innovations in Legal and Compliance Technologies Afshin Behnia, President & CEO, Mitratech. The session will review the state of the legal and compliance industries and present new trends and … Read more »