Congress was smart enough to not let loose the billions of TARP funds without some oversight. The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) was established by Section 121 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act as amended by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Act … Read more »
New Look, Printing, and Mobile Viewing
For those of you who get updates through email updates or RSS, you may not have seen the new look for the Compliance Building website. Please come back and take a look. I have also made some structural changes. The pages and posts are now printer friendly, making it easy to print and take the … Read more »
Tuesday Morning Quarterback and Compliance
What do these have in common? Gregg Easterbrook includes Tim Geithner, Charles Ponzi, Allen Stanford and Ron Blagojevich in his annual mock of mock football drafts. For those of you have who have not read Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, he is not your normal football scribe. Gregg Easterbrook is a contributing editor for The … Read more »
SEC Enforcement Update: A Wounded Animal is a Dangerous Animal
Securities Docket presented this webcast with Michael MacPhail, of Holland & Hart LLP and Patrick Hunnius of White & Case LLP. “In a sharp detour from the era of Chairman Christopher Cox, the SEC under new Chairman Mary Shapiro’s leadership has obtained big budget increases that will be used to increase the number of enforcement … Read more »
The Legal and Regulatory Implications of Internet Privacy
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and Protiviti presented a webinar on the legal implications of social networking. These are my notes. Rocco Grillo of Protiviti started off the presentation. Social networks have become part of many people’s day-to-day work. They have not replaced email, but are still robust communication tools. The first presenter offered the … Read more »
Hotline for Improvements
I overheard at a recent compliance meeting about the possibility of using the whistleblower hotline to also solicit comments for improvements to the operations of your company. Those of you with active hotlines you probably get enough false positives coming through (HR, workplace disputes, …) that you probably don’t want anything else coming in. But … Read more »
Happy Patriots’ Day!
The Redcoats are coming! The Redcoats are coming! Patriots’ Day is a Massachusetts state holiday commemorating the opening battles of the American Revolutionary War in Lexington and Concord in April, 1775. In the morning there is a battle reenactment on the Lexington Green of the early-morning engagement between the town’s militia and the British regulars. … Read more »
Quick Hits
Some quick hits on stories that interest me, but did not make it to a full post: SEC Posts XBRL Compliance Guide from The Filing Cabinet by Melissa Klein Aguilar The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission has posted a “small entity compliance guide” on its rules that require companies to submit financial statements … Read more »
Corresponding with Cornelius
Here are some of my recent comments on some other blogs or other websites that allow comments. I am happy to have you leave comments at Compliance Building. But if not here, take a look at what other people are saying. Join me in the conversation over there. What Would You Do?? by Heather Milligan … Read more »
Risk Assessment – Getting It Right
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP sponsored this webcast: Corporate leaders have long recognized that the pace of change continues to increase in velocity, thus challenging management’s execution of the business’ strategic and tactical plans. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is a management tool that can be effective in identifying and assessing the risks that come with change and allow … Read more »