OSHA Orders Controller to be Rehired

A former finance executive of an industrial-products company has regained his job and will receive back wages under the whistle-blowing provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has ordered the American Standard Cos. and su...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 19, 2004

New Spitzer Initiative Against Insurers

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has expanded his probe of the insurance industry to companies specializing in life, accident, and disability insurance.Spitzer has filed a civil complaint against Universal Life Resources Inc. (ULR), alleging that the company steered business to insurers in...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 17, 2004

Former Boeing CFO Pleads Guilty

In a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, former Boeing Co. chief financial officer Michael Sears pleaded guilty yesterday to a felony count involving the illegal hiring of a top Air Force procurement officer, according to wire-service reports. In October 2002, Darleen Druyun — then the Air For...

By Dave Cook • Nov. 16, 2004

SEC Charges Hollinger, Two Executives

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a fraud complaint on Monday against Hollinger International Inc. former chairman and chief executive officer Conrad M. Black, former deputy chairman and chief operating officer F. David Radler, and Hollinger Inc., the parent company that Black had cont...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 16, 2004

Sarbox 404 Goes into Effect Tomorrow

Although many companies are reportedly not ready for it, the era of internal-controls compliance begins in earnest tomorrow. That’s when Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act goes into effect for all companies whose fiscal year ends after today.There will be nothing to file on Tuesday. But by ear...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 15, 2004

Deloitte Sued for $2 Billion

Deloitte & Touche LLP could be on the hook for as much as $2 billion if it loses a legal claim related to the use of insurance products that are under investigation by government regulators, The Wall Street Journal reported. The brewing legal battle is based on so-called earnings-management i...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 12, 2004

Three Companies Probed On Bribe Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating at least three major, multinational companies for allegedly bribing foreign officials.In its quarterly filing, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. disclosed that in late October the SEC launched an informal inquiry into the activities of the ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 11, 2004

After the Storm

The four hurricanes that devastated Florida this summer packed a bigger punch than Andrew, 1992’s monster storm. Together, Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne racked up more than $20 billion in insured property damage, compared with Andrew’s $15.5 billion. The number of claims from the hurricanes ...

By Ilan Mochari • Nov. 11, 2004

Risks and Benefits: Braking the Brokers

Do corporate finance executives really need an insurance broker to stand between them and their companies’ insurers?Amid the hubbub surrounding New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s probe of bid-rigging and business-steering in the insurance industry, that basic question isn’t being asked muc...

By David Katz • Nov. 11, 2004

Sarbox Support Groups

Sometimes you need a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. As companies struggle to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, which requires them to document and obtain audits of their internal controls, some finance executives are organizing peer groups to share experiences, compare notes on their au...

By Joseph McCafferty • Nov. 10, 2004

SEC Probing Reports of Pension Conflicts

The Securities and Exchange Commission is turning up the heat on pension consultants to determine whether conflicts of interest exist between the consulting firms and the money managers they recommend to clients, the Wall Street Journal reported.The SEC opened an enforcement investigation to dete...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 10, 2004

Conference Calls Can Air Dirty Laundry

During a conference call to discuss second-quarter results at Sears, Roebuck & Co., CEO Alan Lacy was prepared for a barrage of questions from analysts about why the company missed earnings expectations. What he was not prepared for was a question from an irate customer who had a bad experien...

By Joseph McCafferty • Nov. 9, 2004

Bribes and the Balance Sheet

Presentations in hand, six members of a U.S. architecture firm flew to London this year to meet with a high Russian provincial official. About three months earlier, the politician had asked the firm to submit a proposal to develop a waterfront area in the province. But when the architects arrived...

By David Katz • Nov. 8, 2004

The Telephone Game

It’s been just over two years since Sarbanes-Oxley began requiring companies to provide employees with a way to anonymously report financial misdeeds. In practice, that has usually meant setting up telephone hotlines, most of them open to any type of ethics complaint. But along with each call abo...

By Tim Reason • Nov. 8, 2004

Votes All Counted in First Enron Trial

In federal court in Houston, a jury convicted five of six defendants in the first criminal trial involving former energy giant Enron Corp. Four former executives of Merrill Lynch — James A. Brown, Daniel Bayly, William Fuhs, and Robert Furst — and a former mid-level Enron manager, Dan Boyle, were...

By Dave Cook • Nov. 4, 2004

Laggards Warned on Sarbox 404 Compliance

This summer, CFO.com reported that many companies were falling behind in their preparations for Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. (See “No Vacation from Section 404 Prep Work.”) Section 404 — which will guide how auditors report on companies’ assessments of their internal controls — becomes ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 3, 2004

SEC Enlivens ‘Quiet Periods’

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed rules that would allow the largest companies to do a lot more talking before they issue shares of stock. The new regulations would permit some executives to take part in interviews and possibly allow companies to advertise offerings on televisio...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 28, 2004

Saving Gracefully

Remember those virtual pets that were all the rage a few holiday seasons back? Inanimate though they may be, the still-popular toys require proper care and feeding. Fail to provide those essentials, and you soon find yourself looking for a virtual pet cemetery.Information is much like that: each ...

By Anne Stuart • Oct. 27, 2004

Big Data Issues at Smaller Companies

Many data-management requirements, most notably the dictates of Sarbanes-Oxley, initially applied only to large public corporations, but their effects are already trickling down to small and midsize businesses (SMBs). These firms must manage data just as professionally as the big guys, providing ...

By Anne Stuart • Oct. 27, 2004

Anthem Subpoenaed in Insurance Probe

Anthem Inc. has received a subpoena from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is investigating how the big health insurer handles its business with brokers, according to Reuters.The subpoena “just lays out some standard questions about commission and bonus structure,” Anthem spoke...

By Stephen Green • Oct. 27, 2004

Aon Seen Sinking into the Marsh

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigations are sending broadening shock-waves through the property-casualty insurance industry, claiming the chairman of the word’s biggest insurance broker and reportedly soon to ensnare the second-biggest one.On Monday, Jeffrey Greenberg, chairman a...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 26, 2004

Courts and Torts: Workplace Rumors

Marie Leone’s “Courts and Torts” column appears monthly. Contact her at [email protected] the fifth in a series of a flip-flops by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), management came out the winner in June when the NLRB sided with IBM Corp. and ruled that the “Weingarten right” does no...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 26, 2004

Marsh CEO Expected to Resign

Jeffrey Greenberg, the chief executive and chairman of Marsh & McLennan Cos., is expected to resign from the insurance brokerage, the Financial Times Web site reported late Friday.The move is expected to help ignite settlement talks with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who sued the c...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 25, 2004

The Insurance Scandal: Just How Rotten?

First came investment banking; then mutual funds; now the insurance industry is mired in scandal, the latest target of Eliot Spitzer, New York’s formidable attorney general. On October 14th he filed civil charges against Marsh & McLennan, the world’s biggest insurance broker, and announced se...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 22, 2004

An Industry Mired in Scandal

First came investment banking; then mutual funds; now the insurance industry is mired in scandal, the latest target of Eliot Spitzer, New York’s formidable attorney general. On October 14th he filed civil charges against Marsh & McLennan, the world’s biggest insurance broker, and announced se...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 22, 2004