Regulation & Compliance: Page 36
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xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
How Much Should Workers Know?
Companies may have to reveal more about their decisions regarding why some workers are given more rights than others under a proposal the Department of Labor is considering.The proposed regulation is just one of many circulating in Washington that aim to get a handle on how companies classify the...
By Sarah Johnson • May 21, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Drilling for Answers
It has been nearly a month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 people and opening a well that continues to release thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. As BP, the majority owner of the well, desperately tries to stop the leak, ...
By Kate O'Sullivan • May 20, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Forecast Perpetually Sunny, for Analysts
As many companies gear up for growth, CFOs are perhaps more optimistic than they have been in a long time. Few, however, are likely to be as optimistic as Wall Street analysts. A recent study by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. finds that on average, analysts’ forecasts of annual earnings have ...
By Alix Stuart • May 13, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Greek Tragedy Unfolds
With the euro falling to a 14-month low and rioting in Greece claiming three lives this week, the Greek debt crisis seems far from over. Last week’s announcement of a €110 billion rescue package, nearly three times the size of the original bailout proposal, did little to calm fears about Greece’s...
By Kate O'Sullivan • May 7, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
You Complete My Audit
The relationship between accounting firms and their corporate clients has been shaky over the past decade, to say the least. In the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, accounting firms dumped some risky clients, shuttered ancillary consulting arms, and raised fees. That strained the collegial bond be...
By Sarah Johnson • May 1, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
The SEC Has a Few Questions for You
It was a letter that Tom Cawley, CFO of Peet’s Coffee & Tea, couldn’t ignore.Seven months after the company filed its 2008 annual report, there it was: a missive from the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking certain clarifications about the company’s assumptions and business relationshi...
By Sarah Johnson • May 1, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
What’s a Reputation Worth?
As the Toyota Motor Corp. is learning, none of the perils a company faces is harder to measure than damage to its reputation. Other hazards, from a plant explosion to a terrorist attack to a natural disaster, may threaten a company’s very ability to operate, but a sullied corporate image exacts a...
By David Katz • May 1, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
A Global View of Risk
Rather than viewing single risks in isolation, executives should try to better understand the connections among a host of global problems that could affect their businesses in the next decade, urged John Merkovsky, managing director of Marsh Risk Consulting, at the annual Risk and Insurance Manag...
By Kate O'Sullivan • April 29, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Google Shakes Up Investor Relations
Google’s announcement last week that it is revamping some of its investor-relations processes may well open the way for other companies to streamline their own.A key feature of the revamp: Google will no longer distribute financial news through newswire services, such as Business Wire and PR News...
By Alix Stuart • April 26, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
State Environmental Laws: At Your Disposal
Just whose trash is it, anyway? In March Maine became the latest state to mandate that certain products and forms of packaging remain the responsibility of those who make them, up to and including the time the products are thrown away.More than 30 states have now passed what are known as “extende...
By Karen M. Kroll • April 19, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Crackdown on Corruption
In the latest example of ongoing efforts at the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to crack down on violators of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), Daimler agreed last week to pay $185 million in penalties to settle charges it repeatedly and systematically pai...
By Kate O'Sullivan • April 9, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Who Will Buy?
Public-company CFOs may find some appeal in a new tool designed to identify institutional investors with a high probability of buying a company’s stock as well as existing holders at risk of selling, an investor-relations consultant says.Smart Targets, which Thomson Reuters is providing free to c...
By David McCann • April 7, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Trained in Risk
Kristi Matus brings a different orientation to the CFO’s office. Formerly the chief operating officer of a bank, Matus took a position in 2002 as an actuary developing life-insurance products at USAA, a financial-services company serving the armed forces. The role suited Matus, who has a degree i...
By David Katz and Vincent Ryan • April 7, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
How High Is Your RQ?
The presence of a steady hand at finance has become a key driver of how the public feels about a given company, suggest the findings of a new Harris Interactive survey of corporate visibility, released on Monday. Indeed, if the research is indicative, reputational risk management has entered the ...
By David Katz • April 6, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Location, Location, Location
CFOs contemplating an office move may want to head south, and not just for the sunshine and golf, according to a new study by KPMG that ranks 22 large U.S. cities on a variety of business operating costs. Tampa leads the pack as the most cost-competitive large city for business, followed by Atlan...
By Kate O'Sullivan • April 2, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Painful Conversions
Just two years ago, EXL, a business process outsourcing company, didn’t have a treasury department. The finance staff and senior management watched currency fluctuations carefully, but they lacked an explicit policy to address the risk to their cash flows.That risk hit with a vengeance in 2008, w...
By Kate O'Sullivan • April 1, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
The Paperless Chase
Over the past decade, companies have been increasingly communicating with their investors online, as regulators have allowed them to reduce the number of printed annual reports and proxy materials they mail to shareholders. But if the trend has been good for investor-relations budgets (and postal...
By Sarah Johnson • March 30, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
How the SEC Would Spend $1.3 Billion
A 12% increase in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s budget would enable the regulator to hire 374 more employees, some of whom would work for its corporate-finance and enforcement divisions, said SEC chairman Mary Schapiro today.Schapiro testified before a House appropriations subcommittee...
By Sarah Johnson • March 17, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
The Greening of Materiality
New guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission was intended to clarify how companies should explain the effects of climate change on their businesses, but last month’s 29-page interpretive release may raise more questions than it answers.Investor groups have long been critical of compan...
By Sarah Johnson • March 1, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Is Your Broker Mediocre?
These are bargain-basement days for insurance buyers. In the fourth quarter of 2009, workers’-compensation and general-liability premiums dropped 5.5% and 5%, respectively, from the previous year, according to a survey of 1,100 risk managers by Advisen and the Risk and Insurance Management Societ...
By David Katz • March 1, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Keeping Your Ideas to Yourself
Despite their misleading label, intangible assets are hardly abstract. A company’s intellectual property (IP) — the creative knowledge that underlies its products or services – is often what drives profitability and growth. But because such knowledge-based assets don’t count for much on corpora...
By Josh Hyatt • Feb. 25, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Who’s Minding Risk?
Monday-morning quarterbacks pinned the blame for the financial crisis largely on excessive risk taking, particularly at large financial institutions. Subsequent calls for regulatory reform have increasingly included nonfinancial companies and their boards, which critics accuse of having been lax ...
By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 22, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Hot Topic: Climate-Change Disclosure
Last month the subject of disclosing the business impact of climate change generated plenty of heat at an open meeting of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Going forward the SEC’s new interpretive guidance on the matter could make some finance chiefs a little warm under the collar.By a 3-to...
By Sarah Johnson and Marie Leone • Feb. 19, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
How Risky Is Your Board?
For most companies, the risk of securities litigation ebbed somewhat during the past two years, as the plaintiffs’ bar devoted much of its time and energy to complex and potentially lucrative actions against financial-services firms. Now, as the credit crisis wanes, the risk is rising again for n...
By Kate O'Sullivan • Feb. 16, 2010 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Former SEC Top Cop Sees More Lawsuits
Corporations and their directors and officers face an increased risk of being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for aiding and abetting the frauds of other companies, the SEC’s former enforcement chief says.To be sure, the chances of Congress boosting plaintiffs’ ability to sue on su...
By David Katz • Feb. 9, 2010
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