The subtitle of Money for Nothing lets you know what’s coming: How the Failure of Corporate Boards Is Ruining American Business and Costing Us Trillions. If you’ve had your pitchfork and torch at the ready for a march on corporate malfeasance, then this is the book for you. John Gillespie and David Zweig spend the … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for May 14
Here are some interesting articles from the past week: When Investors Say Bad Things on Pay by Matt Kelly in Compliance Week‘s The Big Picture Shareholders had their say on pay at two U.S. corporations last week—and for the first time ever in this country, the answer was “no.” Motorola held its annual meeting on … Read more »
Gold To Go
Don’t settle for getting just cash from your ATM. Insist on gold. The Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi has installed an ATM that spits out gold instead of the local currency. The ATM monitors the hourly price of gold and offers small gold bars. In addition to 1 g, 5 g and 10 g … Read more »
SEC Censure for Failing to Conduct Due Diligence
The SEC censured and fined an investment adviser for due diligence lapses. Yosemite Capital Management, LLC and its managing director, Paul H. Heckler, got a wrist slap for failing to disclose to clients that they had encountered substantial problems when attempting to perform the due diligence. The big problem is that Yosemite had made a … Read more »
SEC Attacks the Rating Agencies
The SEC took its first swing at the failure of credit rating agencies by serving a Wells Notice on Moody’s Investor Service. At issue, according to the Moody’s filing, is the determination in 2007 that members of one of its European rating committees “engaged in conduct contrary to Moody’s Code of Professional Conduct.” Members of … Read more »
Trust and Compliance
To some extent, compliance programs are about the opposite of trust. A compliance professional wants to check on the status of a person’s actions to make sure rules are not being broken. Theoretically, you wouldn’t need to check on the status if you trusted that the person would not break the rules. There are two … Read more »
You know you’ve failed as a CCO when you get barred by FINRA
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority permanently barred Tod Bretton, former chief compliance officer and head trader for Prestige Financial Center, Inc. “FINRA found that, from at least September 2006 through June 2009, Bretton, working from the firm’s New York office, engaged in a fraudulent trading scheme in which he took advantage of customers placing large … Read more »
Legal Fallout from the Oil Spill
See Cartoons by Cartoon by J.D. Crowe Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com Email this Cartoon Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for May 7
Here are some recent compliance related stories that I found interesting: Why Executive Pay Is So High by Neil Weinberg in Forbes.com So [Gary] Wilson can say, with more than a little credibility, that the boards supposedly overseeing management are instead packed with lackeys with appalling frequency. It’s a familiar complaint but one that he … Read more »
Dilbert on Employee Email Privacy
It looks like even Dilbert is keeping an eye on the Quon case at the Supreme Court. Read more »