GAO Eyes Settlement Write-offs

The Internal Revenue Service and agencies that reach civil settlements with businesses should work more closely to ensure that companies give the proper tax treatment to their payouts, maintains a report from the Government Accountability Office.Earlier this year, for example, Marsh & McLenna...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 20, 2005

Automation and Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

Most companies are anxious for business unit managers to assume accountability for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Yet, they also realize that the biggest pain points in the compliance process — and the biggest opportunities for achieving savings and greater efficiency — lie not in the scramble for be...

By Eric Laursen • Oct. 18, 2005

When Risk Meets Reality

At its simplest, banking comes down to this: borrow short, lend long, and pocket the spread. But ever since the banking crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s, bankers have sought more sophisticated ways of making money. As some learned to their sorrow, being so tightly linked to interest rates...

By Ronald Fink • Oct. 18, 2005

Samsung Fined $300 Million for Price Fix

Samsung Electronics Co., the big Korean maker of computer memory chips, and its U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc., have agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $300 million fine — the second biggest in a criminal antitrust case in U.S. history — for fixing prices, according to the Departmen...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 14, 2005

Securities Groups at Odds with AICPA

In a scathing letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bond Market Association and the Securities Industry Association took issue with what they called “anti-investor positions” taken by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.The two securities groups object to an AIC...

By Lisa Yoon • Oct. 13, 2005

Sarbox ABCs for the Rank and File

Aquila, Inc., an electric utilities company, is so serious about complying with Sarbanes-Oxley Act internal-controls rules that it’s requiring all employees — from line workers to the chief executive officer — to complete an online ethics training program.Indeed, the problems featured in the prog...

By Helen Shaw • Oct. 13, 2005

Lawyers for Less

Companies all want law firms to turn over every stone in the quest to win their cases. Paying for all that stone-turning is another matter.In the past, the desire for a favorable outcome has usually won out over cost concerns. These days, though, many companies are finding a way to shave expenses...

By Russ Banham • Oct. 12, 2005

SEC Names Chief Litigation Counsel

The Securities and Exchange Commission named Luis Mejia as its new chief litigation counsel on Wednesday. He succeeds David Kornblau, who departed in August.Mejia, who will lead the enforcement division’s trial attorneys, is “an exceptionally talented trial lawyer and a superb legal tactician,” s...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 12, 2005

Prosecutors Challenge Legal Defense Fees

An unprecedented legal maneuver by federal prosecutors may threaten the legal fees that corporate executives rely on from their employers, according to The National Law Journal.The maneuver surfaced during the retrial of two former executives of Westar Energy Inc., chairman and chief executive of...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 12, 2005

Sarbox: Year 2

First, the good news: Most companies have endured and survived their initial foray into Sarbanes-Oxley. And while it often proved a costly and occasionally frenzied experience, it has, many companies say, improved the controls that govern corporate operations. On the other side of the ledger, unf...

By Bob Violino • Oct. 12, 2005

Exxon Mobil Settles Pollution Case

Exxon Mobil Corp. will settle a case with the Department of Justice by spending $571 million to install pollution-reduction equipment on seven U.S. refineries, according to press reports. A civil penalty will cost the oil giant $8.7 million, while Exxon Mobil will pay another $9.7 million toward ...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 11, 2005

Latest Microsoft Antitrust Deal: $761M

Microsoft Inc. announced that it will pay RealNetworks Inc. $761 million to settle its last major antitrust case and to build an alliance for digital media and games.A first payment of $460 million in cash will resolve all RealNetworks claims and enable the company — until now a fierce critic of ...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 11, 2005

Ex-KPMG Partner Settles on Xerox Charges

A former KPMG partner has agreed to pay $100,000 as part of a settlement of Securities and Exchange Commission charges stemming from his audit of Xerox Corp., which had been accused of improper accounting practices. Joseph T. Boyle, the copier maker’s relationship partner on audits from 1999 thro...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 7, 2005

From Inside Counsel to Offshore Counsel?

Cost-cutters who appreciated CFO magazine’s October article “Lawyers for Less” might also take note of a related but largely unnoticed trend. In 2003, about 6,000 legal-service jobs were shipped offshore, according to a report by Forrester Research. This year that number should reach 20,000 accor...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 7, 2005

GE Agrees to Dredge Hudson River

Decades after it was barred from discharging large quantities of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York State’s Hudson River, The General Electric Co. has agreed to dredge at least some of the toxic substances from the waterway.The New York Times called the project “one of the largest and...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 7, 2005

Hey! Look at Me!

Sometimes Mike Shea feels like a forgotten man. As CFO of Mac-Gray Corp., an operator of laundry facilities, he enjoyed the coverage of three sell-side research analysts in 1997 when the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, no one on the sell-side follows the Cambridge, Mass...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 6, 2005

Katrina Is Costliest U.S. Catastrophe

The damaged caused by Hurricane Katrina in late August will cost U.S. property and casualty insurers an estimated $34.4 billion, says a new report released by Insurance Services Office Inc.According to officials from ISO, which provides data to the risk management industry, that preliminary estim...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 5, 2005

Sarbox Payback Slow in Coming

Since the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 through April of this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission had collected more than $4.8 billion in disgorgement and civil monetary penalties under the Sarbanes-Oxley “Fair Fund” provision, according to a report from the Government Accountabili...

By Dave Cook • Oct. 4, 2005

Another Look at Auditor Independence

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant is stepping back to take another look at its rules on auditor independence, according to deputy chief accountant Andrew Bailey. The ultimate goal, says Bailey, would be to simplify those rules without watering them down.Altho...

By Helen Shaw • Oct. 3, 2005

SEC Eyes Delphi Stock Trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission has subpoenaed the stock-trading records of more than one dozen current and former Delphi Corp. employees, including four former finance executives, reported the Detroit News.The finance executives include chief financial officer Alan Dawes, controller Paul ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 29, 2005

Agencies Extend Deadlines after Katrina

Federal agencies continue to be flexible with companies and their workers when enforcing rules and regulations in the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.In a joint notice, the Internal Revenue Service and the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the Department of Labor announce...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 26, 2005

Finite-Related Subpoena for Fairfax

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. announced that it received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the regulator’s investigation into certain loss mitigation products, also known as finite insurance.The Toronto-based property-casualty and reinsurance company added that t...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 26, 2005

McDonough to Leave PCAOB

William McDonough said he will resign as chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created to oversee the auditing industry in the wake of a number of high-profile corporate scandals. The 71-year-old McDonough said he will leave November 30 or when his successor is in p...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 23, 2005

How Barter Can Aid Storm Victims

The disaster wreaked by Hurricane Katrina has prompted businesses to donate time, products, and money. Possibly unknown to many financial executives is a way that companies with large underperforming or non-performing assets could donate those goods to a charity and get cash for their fair value ...

By Helen Shaw • Sept. 22, 2005

SEC Proposes New Filing Deadlines

The Securities and Exchange Commission has recommended new deadlines for filing quarterly and annual reports, depending upon the size of the company.As part of its proposal, the SEC would create a new category called “large accelerated filers,” which would include companies with a market capitali...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 22, 2005