Here are some recent stories that caught my eye: Q&A with Ethisphere Executive Director Alex Brigham in Corporate Compliance Insights The Ethisphere Institute recently announced the 2010 World’s Most Ethical Companies, highlighting 100 organizations that lead the way in promoting ethical business standards. These companies go beyond legal minimums, introduce innovative ideas benefiting the public … Read more »
Some of My Favorite April Fool’s Day Items on the Web
The web is full of surprises today. Here are some of my favorites The iCade to turn your iPad into an arcade cabinet Google has renamed itself to Topeka Topeka went first and renamed themselves “Google” to attract their fiber for communities program. Atlassian’s Fourwalls A location based social networking platform for inside your company. … Read more »
April Fool’s Day
April Fool’s Day is celebrated with hoaxes and practical jokes. I’m hesitant to post anything today for fear that a serious story would be seen as a joke or a joke would be seen as a serious story. A few years ago, if I had told you that Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, General Motors … Read more »
N.J. Supreme Court upholds privacy of personal e-mails accessed at work
The New Jersey courts have been handling a case that squarely addressed a company’s ability to monitor employee email. Back in April of 2009, I mentioned a New Jersey case that found e-mail, sent during work hours on a company computer, was not protected by the attorney-client privilege: Compliance Policies and Email. That later was … Read more »
Child Climbing Mount Everest
Jordan Romero is thirteen years old. And he is departing on April 5 for his trip to climb Mount Everest. That would be an extraordinary feat. But is it ethical to allow such a young person to put himself in such a dangerous situation? (In case you are wondering, the current record for the youngest … Read more »
Supreme Court Rules on When Mutual Fund Fees are too High
The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Jones v. Harris Associates, addressing the standard for when mutual fund fees are too high. Background Under §36(b) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 the “the investment adviser of a registered investment company shall be deemed to have a fiduciary duty with respect to the receipt of … Read more »
Making the Case for Compliance at Private Companies
More focus has been aimed at the need for compliance programs at public companies. Of course, that focus has been largely drive by the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. The other focus comes from highly regulated industries like financial services that require compliance programs. That doesn’t mean that private companies can ignore compliance. There are many more … Read more »
Mutual Fund Advertisements and Social Media
Much has been made about FINRA’s Regulatory Notice 10-06 and how that will affect the social media use by registered representatives. Looking beyond the broker/dealers, I thought it would be interesting to see what mutual fund companies are doing with social media. I’ve started seeing some mutual fund companies starting to dip their toes into … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for March 26
Here are some interesting stories from the past week: The Difference Between Wrong and Illegal by Charles H. Green Do you know the difference between a wrong action and an illegal action? If you don’t, you are not alone. But neither are you to be trusted. Ghostblogging will be the death of social media in … Read more »
Bribery in Britain
The British government is working on a new Bribery Bill “to reform the criminal law of bribery to provide for a new consolidated scheme of bribery offenses to cover bribery both in the United Kingdom (UK) and abroad.” The Bribery Bill would replaces the offenses under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention … Read more »