Non-Competes: The Dark Side of Tight Labor

Non-compete agreements are the dark side of the tight labor market. They’re the stick many companies use to keep employees from jumping ship to competitors. Unlike such carrots as signing bonuses and stock options, non-competes provide employers with a punitive way to keep their best employees—an...

By David Katz • Feb. 1, 2001

Corralling Rates

In 1995, when insurance prices were ridiculously low, Union Carbide Corp. decided to take a prudent approach. Knowing that bargains don’t last forever, the $5.9 billion chemical company purchased a multiyear, combined- lines property- and- casualty insurance policy that locked in its prices over ...

By Russ Banham • Feb. 1, 2001

Will the 401(k) Bubble Burst?

Will the downturn in the stock market be deep enough to push 401(k) plan sponsors toward offering broader arrays of investment choices to participants in the quest for better returns? Over the last few years, that question has been irrelevant. CFOs and senior investment officers were for the most...

By David Katz • Feb. 1, 2001

The OSHA Ergonomics Rule’s Fatal Flaw

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new ergonomics rule is an unstable compound, ready to blow at some future date. And that should make many CFOs happy—but only in the long term. The standard, which took effect January 16, requires stricter guidelines from employers who have litt...

By David Katz • Jan. 25, 2001

Clinton Privacy Rules May Reach Into Corporate Pockets

A warning to all employers: mum’s the word on your employees’ medical data. The punishment for simply giving out such data without a worker’s permission may be as severe as paying out $50,000 and spending a year in prison. That’s one of the penalties mandated under the new medical privacy rules t...

By Michelle Gabrielle • Jan. 19, 2001

Drowning In Underwater Stock Options

“Help! I’m drowning,” employees holding underwater stock options may be crying. At the same time, institutional shareholders are singing a song called, “Don’t dilute me, let them go,” meaning employee holders of stock options and the options themselves.With the stock market’s downward slide, many...

By David Katz • Jan. 18, 2001

It’s `Scratch and Win’ in the Insurance-Buying Game

For the property-casualty insurance industry and the buyers of commercial lines coverage, the new Congress and the presence of George W. Bush as president are starting to look like a scratch-and-win game in which prizes are sure to be won. In the areas of product and environmental liability refor...

By David Katz • Jan. 17, 2001

Is There an Insurance Crisis Coming?

Looks like insurers weren’t bluffing.Shortly after the September 11 attacks, representatives of the property and casualty insurance industry asked Congress to cap losses by promising to pick up terrorist-related claims above a specified level. At first, it looked like legislators were going to de...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 10, 2001

Death of the Gatekeeper

(“Risks & Benefits” is a weekly column covering risk management, employee benefits, compensation, and other workplace issues of interest to senior financial executives. Comments are most welcome. E-mail David Katz at: [email protected].)Any employee who’s been a member of a health- benefits p...

By David Katz • Jan. 4, 2001

Greenspan at the Helm

The unpredictable and frequently astonishing events of the last several months have forced many people to change plans. Young entrepreneurs anticipating dot-com initial public offerings have had to shelve the blueprints for their mansions. Large companies are shying away from jittery bond markets...

By Daniel Gross • Jan. 1, 2001

Looking for Raw Deals

By the time Elvis had left the building at United Technology Cos. headquarters last winter, it was clear that the Hartford-based company’s new E-procurement system could procure just about anything. The system didn’t actually bring the King back from the grave, but it did manage to engage an Elvi...

By Tim Reason • Jan. 1, 2001

The COLI Wars

When Congress passed a slate of tax changes in 1996 to curb the use of tax shelters by U.S. companies, corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) policies were at the top of the hit list. And judging from two court decisions in the past year, Internal Revenue Service hitmen are finding their mark.On O...

By David Katz • Jan. 1, 2001

NEW COLUMN: Risks & Benefits

(Editor’s note: This is the first appearance of “Risks & Benefits,” a weekly column covering risk management, employee benefits, compensation, and other workplace issues of interest to senior financial executives. Comments are welcomed. E-Mail to: [email protected].)On the surface, it sounds ...

By David Katz • Dec. 26, 2000

It’s Time to Get Serious About Audit Committees

Leland Graul recalls the time not too long ago when he nearly lost it. The BDO Seidman partner was meeting with chiefs of a Fortune 1000 client in order to review procedures for the firm’s audit.“‘As chairman of the audit committee, do I have to read the Form 10-K?'” he remembers being asked. “I ...

By Ed Zwirn • Dec. 21, 2000

Disclosing Stock-Option Plans

Are companies that issue stock options to a broad base of employees, as well as directors and officers, trying to slip a fast one past investors? Or should company management, operating in a tight labor market, be cut some slack and be permitted to offer stock options to rank-and- file employees ...

By David Katz • Dec. 19, 2000

Ghastly Calculations

Maybe it’s the fear that a car crash or a food contamination, mixed with a class-action lawsuit, can subtract hundreds of millions of dollars from a company’s bottom line. Maybe it’s the cheap price of liability insurance. Whatever the cause, however, corporations have been buying higher and high...

By David Katz • Dec. 14, 2000

It’s the Losses, Stupid

With their companies facing the likely prospect of higher property-casualty insurance costs in 2001, CFOs and the risk managers who toil under them may soon be handling some hot potatoes: potential losses that were previously insured. And those loss exposures— spiked by a random hurricane or a st...

By David Katz • Dec. 12, 2000

Don’t Call Me Dot-Com Anymore

Everyone has a friend that had a silly nickname when they were young, like “Bones” or “Boomer.” It was cool in college, but chances are when those friends graduated, they worked hard to ditch the nickname to appear more professional in the working world. Once- glorious, now scorned Internet compa...

By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 8, 2000

The Power of Purchasing Cards

A few years ago, if Keith Miller told his colleagues at Ericsson (www.ericsson.com) that the company’s transaction processing would soon become paperless, he probably would have been laughed at. The SKr215 billion ($22 billion) Swedish phone giant was no different from other large companies; it w...

By Cliff Saran • Dec. 1, 2000

Law: OSHA Issues Final Ergonomics Regulation, Lawsuits Follow

See all of those people busily typing outside your office? Well, the harder they work, the more it could wind up costing you. Why?On November 14, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) adopted a final ergonomics regulation, which addresses repetitive motion injuries, such as car...

By Jennifer Caplan • Dec. 1, 2000

A Brand New Start of It

When Alan Hevesi was elected Comptroller of New York City in 1994, his office at One Centre Street looked pretty much the way it did when Tammany Hall, J.P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller ruled the town. Little had been refurbished, not everyone had computers, and files were overflowing into the...

By Russ Banham • Dec. 1, 2000

Reg FD and The Big Chill

If you think Reg FD won’t have a chilling effect on the way public companies communicate the details of their inner workings, consider Eric K. Brandt, the 38-year-old CFO and corporate vice president of Allergan, a high- tech health care corporation in Irvine, Calif. He’s only one of six people y...

By David Katz • Nov. 27, 2000

Communications: GE Sheds Light on Warning Rumors

More and more, chat room and E-mail rumors are forcing companies to do something they hate to do—respond. General Electric Co. was forced today to undress rumors that it was planning to issue a profit warning that it would fall short of fourth quarter earnings estimates. “Responding to an outrage...

By Joseph McCafferty • Nov. 22, 2000

Audit Committees Face SEC Heat

Conjure up the stereotype of an outside director and you’re likely to see a former President, senator or other dignitary getting paid to do little more than attend some meetings and lend prestige to a firm. But publicly held U.S. corporations will soon need to pay closer attention to the selectio...

By Ed Zwirn • Nov. 22, 2000

Sidebar: Straight Talk at Ford

Recapitalization plans are not exactly a piece of cake. Difficult to engineer, they’re even more complex to explain to those outside the financial world. So when Ford Motor Co. needed to communicate to its 725,000 shareholders its market recapitalization proposal in its July proxy statement, the ...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 21, 2000