SEC Fines Insurers $20 Million

The Securities and Exchange Commission has fined a number of insurance companies $20 million for “facilitating market timing of mutual funds through the sale of variable annuities.”The insurance companies include three subsidiaries of Conseco, Inc.: CIHC, Inc.; Conseco Services, LLC; and Conseco...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 10, 2004

CFO Takes Leave, Citing SEC Scrutiny

The CFO of ABX Air Inc., Duane Kimble, agreed with the air-cargo company that he would take an immediate personal leave of absence from the after being informed by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the agency is considering bringing a civil action suit against him.The warning to Kimble ...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 6, 2004

Bristol-Myers to Pay $150 Million in SEC Settlement

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. will pay $150 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that alleged the pharmaceutical giant inflated sales and earnings to fool investors. The fine, double what published reports had predicted, was settled without company officials admitting or denyin...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 5, 2004

Sarbox Spurs Technology Spending, CFOs Say

About half of 177 CFOs and managing directors of U.S.-based multinationals responding to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey say their companies are mulling buying new technologies over the next 12 months to improve their current reporting infrastructure.Further, 46 percent of the executives ...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 5, 2004

SEC Settles with Halliburton

The Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against Halliburton Co. and two former finance executives for failure to disclose a change to its accounting practice during a period when vice president Dick Cheney served as chief executive officer.Halliburton also agreed to pay a $7.5 mill...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 4, 2004

SEC: 1,300 ”Whistles” Blown Each Day

The Securities and Exchange Commission has fielded nearly 250,000 tips about possible securities-law violations so far this year, according to USA Today.In fact, the commission receives more than 1,300 emails each day through its online complaint service, according to the paper, citing John Stark...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 3, 2004

Ex-Enron Division Chief Pleads Guilty

Kenneth Rice, the former chief executive officer of Enron Corp.’s high-speed Internet division, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, according to several news accounts.In 2003, reported the Associated Press, Rice was charged with sellin...

By Craig Schneider • Aug. 3, 2004

Unfair Opinions?

The latest move to clean up perceived conflicts of interest on Wall Street is coming from the Street itself, as NASD contemplates new rules for fairness opinions.Formal opinions about whether a merger or acquisition price falls within a fair range have been standard in deals since 1985, when the ...

By Tim Reason • Aug. 3, 2004

Watch Your Back

When you consider all the bad things that happen to good plans, it’s not surprising how often CEOs blame poor performance on poor luck. Product launches flop when customer demand is weaker than expected. A brilliantly conceived merger becomes a value-destroying menace when integration fails. Plan...

By Don Durfee • Aug. 1, 2004

Picking Up the Pieces

When Martha Stewart was denied a new trial last month, shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. took another dip, further illustrating the particular peril faced by companies closely identified with a “brand name.” As many have learned lately, corporate reputations polished for decades to a...

By Roy Harris • Aug. 1, 2004

Charges for ex-CFO of Qwest Wireless

A former CFO for a subsidiary of Qwest Communications International Inc. is the subject of civil fraud charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.The SEC complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, alleged that former Qwest Wireless chief financial officer Michael Felicissimo ...

By Ed Zwirn • July 29, 2004

Procurement Pros Swap Staff for IT

Smaller, faster, better: Apparently this high-tech mantra also applies to the corporate procurement process. A study by The Hackett Group has found that companies with the most productive procurement processes operate with half the staff of their peers, are more adept at leveraging information te...

By Marie Leone • July 28, 2004

No 9/11 ”Insider Profits,” SEC Finds

In the period before September 11, no speculators made trades in the public markets with the apparent intent of profiting from the terrorist attacks, according to a report by the Securities and Exchange Commission.The SEC, which said that it began an investigation the day after the attacks, repor...

By Ed Zwirn • July 27, 2004

Crisis? What Crisis?

In years to come, the Swiss staffing firm Adecco may well take its place on the syllabuses of business schools around the world. As a textbook example of how to mislead and vex investors, it’s hard to beat this scandal that never was.The story dates back to January 12, when Adecco announced in a ...

By Jason Karaian • July 27, 2004

Halliburton May Settle Cheney-Era Probe

Halliburton Co. may settle a two-year-old probe of its accounting practices during the period that Vice President Dick Cheney ran the company, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.The wire service reported that the energy services and infrastructure services company has ...

By Stephen Taub • July 26, 2004

Simpler Small-Business Tax Compliance

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has introduced a bill that would “simplify the tax code and reduce compliance burdens placed on small businesses.”The Small Business Cash Accounting Act of 2004 would permit businesses that generally earn less than $10 million during the tax year to use cash-accountin...

By Stephen Taub • July 21, 2004

Going, Going…

Call it dot-bomb redux. Amid great fanfare in 2000, Covisint wowed the procurement world when it launched its ambitious global online business-to-business marketplace for the car industry. Supported by the likes of Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, the project’s backers crowed that Covi...

By Poul Funder Larsen • July 21, 2004

SEC to Expand Environmental Disclosure

The Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to make it easier for investors to track environmental liabilities at public companies, reported Reuters. The changes would also help the SEC to assess how well it enforces environmental disclosure and to adjust its reporting requirements.The init...

By Stephen Taub • July 19, 2004

Martha Stewart Sentenced to Five Months

Martha Stewart — the namesake, a former director, and the former chief creative officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. — was sentenced this morning to five months in prison by U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum. Stewart will then serve two years of supervised probation, which i...

By Dave Cook • July 16, 2004

Enron Reorganization Plan Approved

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez has approved Enron Corp.’s plan that would enable it to emerge from the second-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.Although creditors are owed more than $74 billion, the company said it expects to negotiate that amount down to about $63 billion and pay approxi...

By Stephen Taub • July 16, 2004

Former Tyco Lawyer Acquitted

Mark Belnick, former executive vice president and chief corporate counsel of Tyco International Ltd., was found not guilty on Thursday of securities fraud, grand larceny, and falsifying business records.The verdict came on the fifth day of deliberations — even as the prosecution and the defense w...

By Dave Cook • July 16, 2004

Fannie Mae Cooperation ”Spotty”

The head of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight — which is conducting a broad investigation of Fannie Mae after its smaller sibling, Freddie Mac, became embroiled in an accounting scandal — doesn’t feel he’s getting all the help he should.“The cooperation has been spotty, but there...

By Stephen Taub • July 15, 2004

Blame Sarbox for Earnings Woes, Too?

In the past few weeks, at least two software companies — Veritas Software and Siebel Systems — have warned that earnings for the recently completed quarter came in lower than expected. Now one Wall Street analyst is blaming the shortfall on CFOs and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.Piper Jaffray software i...

By Stephen Taub • July 14, 2004

No Vacation from Section 404 Prep Work

Most companies still have a lot more work before they are in compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, according to two new surveys.They’re cutting it mighty close, considering that for many companies, Section 404 — which will guide how auditors report on companies’ assessments of th...

By Stephen Taub • July 14, 2004

Lea Fastow Begins Prison Term

Lea Fastow, a former Enron Corp. assistant treasurer and the wife of former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, began her one-year prison term on Monday for her role in the bankrupt energy company’s accounting scandal.Fastow, 42, entered the Federal Criminal Detention center in downtown Housto...

By Stephen Taub • July 13, 2004