Regulation & Compliance: Page 42
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xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Bankrupt Delphi Told It Can Cancel Retiree Benefits
Delphi Corp received bankruptcy court permission to cancel benefits for 15,000 retirees, which would enable the bankrupt auto parts maker to save more than $70 million annually.As a result, according to a report on the court proceedings in the Detroit News, on April 1 Delphi could cancel salaried...
By Stephen Taub • Feb. 24, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Bernanke: U.S. Action Could End Recession in 2009
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke believes there is “a reasonable prospect” that federal government success in restoring financial stability could bring about an end to the recession this year, so that “2010 will be a year of recovery.” In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Tues...
By Roy Harris • Feb. 24, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
CNA Sues Its Ex-CFO over Stock Loan
CNA Financial Corp. is suing its former chief financial officer over a loan that it allegedly made to him, but that the big insurer says he refuses to repay.Peter E. Jokiel, who left CNA in 2001, is alleged in the suit to owe the company more than $2.8 million from a loan he took out 10 years ago...
By Stephen Taub • Feb. 23, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
New SEC Enforcer Was a Bank Lawyer, Prosecutor
The Securities and Exchange Commission named as its director of enforcement Robert Khuzami, a former bank lawyer who, on behalf of his company, lobbied for easing regulations related to “complex structured-finance transactions.”The 52-year-old Khuzami, also has a long record as a tough federal pr...
By Marie Leone • Feb. 19, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Can’t Pay or Won’t Pay?
No part of the financial crisis has received so much attention, with so little to show for it, as the tidal wave of home foreclosures sweeping over America. Government programmes have been ineffectual, and private efforts not much better. Now it is Barack Obama’s turn. On Wednesday February 18th ...
By Economist Staff • Feb. 19, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Eastern Leaders Ask for Help from the Eurozone
Politicians from central and eastern European countries are calling for greater help — and understanding — from the eurozone for their struggling economies.Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, Poland’s minister for Europe, said that while members of the eurozone were being allowed to depart from the rules of th...
By European Voice Staff • Feb. 19, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Fed Sees Economic Slide, Moving Target for Stimulus
The Federal Reserve is ratcheting up its projection for U.S. economic deterioration this year, now seeing an unemployment rate of between 8.5 and 8.8 percent by year-end, rather than the projections three months ago of 7.1 to 7.6 percent. The Fed also now sees a contraction of the overall U.S. ec...
By Roy Harris • Feb. 18, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
It’s Easy Not Being Green
The majority of companies that are about to get hit with environmental sanctions ignore the Securities and Exchange Commission’s requirement that they disclose that liability to investors, according to a University of Arkansas researcher.In one of the SEC’s rare bright-line materiality guidelines...
By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 18, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
SEC Gets Ounce of Flesh from RIM Execs
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and four senior executives, including two finance officers, with stock-option backdating. At the same time, the SEC announced that the charges have been settled.The accused individuals include Dennis Kavelman...
By David McCann • Feb. 17, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Dividends Are Deemed Expendable
A growing number of companies are slashing their dividends to preserve cash. Many have had a long tradition of providing the payouts, which had enabled them to attract conservative, loyal buy-and-hold investors.For example, The Dow Chemical Co., which has paid shareholders cash dividends every qu...
By Stephen Taub • Feb. 13, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
SEC Should Adopt CIA Methods, Lawyers Say
The recent fiery criticism leveled by U.S. Representatives and Senators at the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly dropping the ball on investigating Bernard Madoff and mishandling the financial crisis has prompted lawyers to dream big dreams about boosting SEC prosecutions of corpor...
By David Katz • Feb. 13, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
The Cost of Auditor Independence
Hiring a public accounting firm to provide both internal and external audits, a practice that was banned by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, actually reduced companies’ accounting risk, researchers claim.The knowledge of a company that an external auditor gained from internal auditing lowered the chances ...
By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 12, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
A COO for the SEC?
The United States Chamber of Commerce, never an enthusiastic supporter of government regulation of business, today advised that the Securities and Exchange Commission should make vast changes in its management structure.Seven of 23 recommendations in the chamber’s report on the commission’s effic...
By Kate Plourd • Feb. 11, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
FBI: 530 Corporate Fraud Probes in Progress
The long prison terms handed out to high-profile fraud perpetrators at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and others this decade apparently haven’t had much of a deterrent effect.The FBI has more than 530 open corporate fraud investigations, including 38 directly related to the current crisis, deputy directo...
By Stephen Taub • Feb. 11, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
SEC’s Casey Rips Rating Agency “Oligopoly”
The Securities and Exchange Commission should strip language from its rules that have set up and preserved “a valuable franchise for the large rating agencies, while simultaneously inoculating them from market competition,” SEC Commissioner Kathleen Casey has asserted. Declaring it to be an essen...
By David Katz • Feb. 10, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Top Enforcer Leaves SEC
Linda Chatman Thomsen is leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission after nearly four years as the regulator’s enforcement chief.She will return to the private sector, the SEC said today. The SEC’s announcement has been largely expected since Mary Schapiro took over as the commission’s chair...
By Sarah Johnson • Feb. 9, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
SEC to Get Tougher on Corporate Wrongdoers
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro announced Friday she would make it easier for SEC staff to launch formal investigations of corporations, and she overturned her predecessor’s policy of requiring commission approval for levying financial penalties against public companies....
By Tim Reason • Feb. 6, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
RIM Execs to Pay for Mispriced Options
Research In Motion Ltd. and eight executives have settled charges from Canadian regulators over the company’s historical stock-option-granting practices.Four of the eight executives — including two finance executives — agreed to pay a total of $75 million (U.S.). The settlements still must be app...
By Stephen Taub • Feb. 6, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Six Degrees of Bernie Madoff
The customer list for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities was released on Wednesday as part of a New York bankruptcy court filing. The list that runs 162 pages is filled with the names and addresses of individuals, companies, trusts, pension plans and other entities that invested in the firm ...
By CFO Editorial Staff • Feb. 5, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Green light for France’s green aid
The European Commission has, for the first time, given the green light to a state-aid scheme specifically designed to help producers of relatively green products.The scheme, which is one of the measures adopted by France to tackle the current economic crisis, will allow both national and local au...
By European Voice Staff • Feb. 4, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Warning Signs
Bart Le Blanc is certainly reassured by the fact that risk management has “always been an integral part” of the company where he works. Urenco, a privately held joint venture with German, Dutch and British owners, is one of a handful of uranium-enrichment companies that supply fuel for nuclear re...
By Janet Kersnar • Feb. 2, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Lights Out for Ex-CFO in Revenue Scheme
A federal court has entered a final judgment against a former finance executive whom the Securities and Exchange Commission had charged in a fraudulent scheme to inflate revenue.Kevin Morano, the one-time CFO of Lumenis Ltd., an Israeli company that had executive offices in New York and whose sto...
By Stephen Taub • Feb. 2, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Run for Cover
Out of sight, out of mind. CFOs rarely give much thought to credit insurance, delegating responsibility for it deep within the finance function. But as insurers withdraw cover in the face of surging claims (see “Bold Claims” at the end of this article), trade credit is now high on the agenda of m...
By Jason Karaian • Feb. 2, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
The Next Wave
The wounds of recession often encounter a particularly painful form of salt: litigation. Corporate attorneys stand ready to pour it on if they sense weakness in a rival, or as a way to compensate for their own economic woes. At the same time, regulators have gotten more aggressive, and the costs ...
By S.L. Mintz • Feb. 1, 2009 -
xdfolio. "Policies Standards Compliance" [Illustration]. Retrieved from Pixabay.
Getting Smaller, but Not Quieter
The world of high finance had already been brought low before the Madoff scandal rocked Wall Street in December. Even so, corporate finance officers shouldn’t write off the hedge-fund industry, which still serves as a hotbed of activist investors. “The activists aren’t going anywhere,” warns Jeff...
By Josh Hyatt • Feb. 1, 2009
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