For AIG, What Goes Around Comes Around

Connecticut is the third state whose attorney general has taken the lead in securities-related litigation.

Eliot Spitzer, in New York, spearheaded the settlement with Wall Street over the conflicts between research and investment banking, and he recently took the lead in the investigation into the special trading arrangements between mutual funds and hedge funds. And last month Oklahoma attorney general W. A. Drew Edmondson filed charges against WorldCom and six former executives, including former CEO Bernie Ebbers and former CFO Scott Sullivan.

Are Your Overseas Employees on Their Own?
On the two-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks, few organizations have taken concrete steps to address evacuation planning for their international employees, according to a survey by KPMG.

Of the more than 600 multinational companies that responded to a KPMG survey on global assignment policies and practices, less than one-third have contracted with a vendor for assistance, and fewer than 20 percent have location-specific plans in place.

Even so, companies have lessened their overall risk. Nearly 50 percent reported that they have made reductions in the number of assignees sent to high-risk locations.

On the other hand, last week we reported on a that a recent survey by The Hartford Financial Services Group. The survey found that 97 percent of 225 small and midsize businesses have at least one plan to protect themselves against an emergency.

Another recent survey, conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, also found substantial changes in the office environment, some of them psychological.

SHRM asked 408 HR professionals, "In your opinion, what lasting changes, if any, have taken place in the workplace as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks?" Among the results:

• 64 percent of organizations have put higher security provisions in place.

• 31 percent have increased their screening of employees during the hiring process.

• 27 percent have increased training in crisis management.

• 26 percent have curtailed business travel.
  
  

Short Takes

• New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso, under attack for his $140 million pay package, agreed to forgo $48 million in additional benefits even as he defended his deal.
  
  

• HR departments' share of company budgets climbed a bit in 2003, to 0.9 percent of total projected expenditures for this year. That's an increase from the 0.8 percent for 2002 but still substantially below the 1.1 percent during the mid-1990s.
  
  

• The economy is now expected to grow at a 4.5 percent annualized rate in the third quarter, the quickest pace since the first three months of 2002, according to the median estimate of 59 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Last month, economists had projected third-quarter growth of just 3.6 percent.
  
  

• A federal judge has approved Conseco Inc.'s bankruptcy exit plan, freeing the company to emerge from court protection within days as an insurance-only operation, according to Reuters.
  
  

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