Watch Your Mouth

When Regulation Fair Disclosure took effect in October 2000, finance executives felt some trepidation that their own words might eventually hang them. As a company’s main spokesperson on matters financial, after all, a CFO is in the precarious position of routinely answering analysts’ and shareho...

By Lori Calabro • Dec. 1, 2003

Enron Could Force Kenneth Lay to Repay $94 Million Loan

Enron could seek to force Kenneth Lay, its former chairman, and Jeffrey Skilling, its former CEO, to repay millions of dollars in loans to spread among creditors because the loans weren’t approved by the entire board, a bankruptcy court examiner reportedly concluded.From May 1999 through October ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 26, 2003

Internal Controls

In a race against time,” begins an IBM press release issued late last month, “IBM…is marshaling its global resources to help businesses meet pending deadlines on new compliance regulations.”A race against time indeed. As businesses race to comply with key provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2...

By Scott Leibs • Nov. 17, 2003

Investor Relations for Small-Cap Companies

At companies of every size, executives who deal with investor relations must face hurdles posed by the economy, scheduling conflicts, securities regulation, and a plethora of other circumstances. At small-cap companies, however, they face additional challenges, often created by a scarcity of reso...

By Kara Newman • Nov. 13, 2003

Today Putnam, Tomorrow the Rest

As the big Wall Street investment banks have already discovered to their cost, America’s fund managers are learning that once the regulators start scrutinising industry practices, one discovery tends to lead to another. When Eliot Spitzer, New York’s attorney-general, and William Galvin, Massachu...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 7, 2003

Wall Street Warrior

Eliot Spitzer seems bent on bringing another Wall Street giant to its knees. This time the 44-year-old New York Attorney General is targeting the mutual-fund industry, with a probe of late-day trading activities and market timing at Canary Capital Partners that has led to the first-ever criminal ...

By A CFO Interview • Nov. 1, 2003

Unequal Justice

With a Republican in the White House and Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, prospects looked bright earlier this year for property/casualty insurers to achieve long-sought reforms of the civil-justice system. President Bush had made tort reform a major plank of his legislative agend...

By Russ Banham • Nov. 1, 2003

Rites of Privacy

Much has been made in the past year about the potential tab for complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as well as the burden in terms of man-hours and liability. So it’s logical to assume that any company that didn’t have to comply wouldn’t comply. Think again.At Cargill Inc., adhering to...

By David Katz • Nov. 1, 2003

Citi’s New Stance

In business, nothing speeds forgiveness like success. Citigroup cranked out a record $4.1 billion in earnings from continuing operations in the first quarter of this year, and followed it with $4.3 billion the following quarter. That performance moved investors, who had driven the stock price dow...

By A CFO Interview • Nov. 1, 2003

Former Enron Executive Pleads Guilty

David Delainey, the former chief executive of Enron North America and Enron Energy Services, pleaded guilty to insider trading in federal court on Thursday, reported Reuters.In addition to cooperating further with prosecutors, Delainey agreed to pay $8 million in penalties, partly in settlement o...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 31, 2003

To Survive Sarbox, Document the Obvious

Internal controls. Attestation. Accelerated filings. Audit committees. Financial experts.Complying with all of the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley as more and more rules go into effect is enough to keep finance executives up at night — if not from worrying whether they are complying correctly and on...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 28, 2003

Gremlin in the Works

Philip Cummings worked at a help desk for a suburban New York software company, where his employers found him to be pleasant, reliable and a safe bet. One day three years ago, federal prosecutors say, Cummings decided it was time to help himself. The company he worked for, Teledata Communications...

By Yasmin Ghahremani • Oct. 28, 2003

The Best of Both Worlds

China’s transition from a state-owned to a market-oriented economy has been remarkable for its speed. But one side effect of the headlong race has been that new accounting systems mingle with the old, and the whole business of reporting can seem ambiguous in the extreme. From a CFO’s point of vie...

By Yang Jian • Oct. 27, 2003

Get Naked

Management gurus are expected to entertain nowadays, as well as to enlighten. On one occasion, Don Tapscott, a leading business “author and futurist”, had Patrick Stewart — aka Jean-Luc Picard, a captain of the starship Enterprise — “materialise” alongside him on stage, seemingly transported ther...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 17, 2003

Finance Execs Resign from Computer Associates

Computer Associates’ CFO and two other finance executives have stepped down in the wake of a brewing accounting scandal.The executives—Ira Zar, the finance chief; Lloyd Silverstein, senior vice president of finance; and David Rivard, vice president of finance—resigned at the request of Sanjay Kum...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 10, 2003

Dealing with Reg G

Earnings season is upon us, which means that once again it’s time to pay careful attention to “Regulation G.” In the wake of a string of high-profile corporate accounting scandals and the subsequent passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted “Reg G” in Janua...

By Kara Newman • Oct. 9, 2003

Enron Doesn’t Deliver, but in Bankruptcy It May Still Collect

Nevada-based power company Sierra Pacific Resources may be required to pay Enron for some $330 million worth of power that Enron never delivered. The two electric power units of Sierra entered into contracts with Enron Power Marketing in 2000 and 2001 — during a period of huge increases in the pr...

By Dave Cook • Oct. 7, 2003

Shareholder Reforms Fall Short, Say Treasurers

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to make it easier for shareholders to elect company directors does not go far enough, according to a group of treasurers and other officials who run some of the nation’s largest pension funds.The managers insist that the rules, which the SEC is expect...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 6, 2003

When the Saints Come Marching In

As they attempt to rise from the ashes of their recent fraud debacles, several companies are lining up squeaky-clean new board members in hopes of regaining investors’ trust.For example, Dennis Beresford, former Financial Accounting Standards Board chief, and former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Oct. 1, 2003

The Attorney’s Dilemma

These days, executives have plenty of reasons to seek out the sage advice of corporate counsel. But whether or not they will feel comfortable enough to actually ask for that advice is another matter.Indeed, some experts insist that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rules governing atto...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 1, 2003

Whistle-Blower Woes

When Matthew Whitley was laid off from his job last March as a finance manager at The Coca-Cola Co., along with about 1,000 other employees, he didn’t take it lying down. Two months later, Whitley approached his former employer seeking a whopping settlement—$44.4 million—on the grounds that he ha...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2003

SEC Targets Enron’s Lay as Trials Begin

The Securities and Exchange Commission sought a court order Monday requiring former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay to produce documents related to the agency’s probe of the fallen energy giant.In the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the SEC filed a subpoena enforcement action accusin...

By Marie Leone and Stephen Taub • Sept. 30, 2003

Mold Spreads

Once upon a time, mold was a problem at work only if you avoided cleaning the office refrigerator for too long. Lately, though, it’s becoming the hottest topic in property/casualty insurance, as lawsuits claiming health-related damages from toxic mold spread from residences to offices and other c...

By Roy Harris • Sept. 25, 2003

Walking the Beat

Skandia, the Swedish insurer and one of Europe’s oldest publicly listed companies, does not have a U.S. stock listing, nor bonds that trade there, and it ceased trading in the U.S. last year after the sale of American Skandia to Prudential for about $1 billion. Yet, the SKr75 billion (E8 billion)...

By Tony McAuley • Sept. 22, 2003

Former Merrill Executives Charged in Enron Case

Three former Merrill Lynch investment bankers were charged with conspiracy to defraud investors for their role in a 1999 deal that allowed Enron Corp. to report a bogus $12 million profit.Robert Furst, once Merrill’s relationship manager with Enron, Daniel Bayly, former head of global investment ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 18, 2003