EU Executive Proposes Massive Economic Stimulus

The European Commission has unveiled plans for a €200 billion economic recovery plan, equivalent to 1.5% of the EU’s total gross domestic product, a move that it described as an “exceptional response” to a “period of exceptional economic crisis.” European Commission President José Manuel Barros...

By European Voice Staff • Nov. 27, 2008

Obama’s Accounting Expert?

Google Paul Volcker, and most of the results will focus on the former Fed chairman’s role as a hardnosed inflation fighter. In the late 1970s, Volcker jacked up interest rates, successfully taming runaway inflation, but also sparking the severe 1981-82 recession. In a news conference today, Presi...

By Tim Reason • Nov. 26, 2008

Treasury Snaps Up $40b of AIG Equity

American International Group Inc. received $40 billion from the Department of the Treasury under the Troubled Assets Relief Program.As part of the deal to help keep the insurer afloat, Treasury purchased four million shares of AIG Series D preferred stock and a warrant to purchase a number of AIG...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 26, 2008

Moody’s: TARP Covers Well with Preferred Stock

Moody’s Investors Service takes a positive view of the government’s infusion of capital to ailing financial institutions in the form of preferred stock issued under the federal Troubled Assets Relief Program.In a new report, the debt-rating company notes that capital injection comes at a time whe...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 21, 2008

Is the SEC Soft-Pedaling IFRS?

Securities and Exchange Commission officials continue to talk about the importance of creating a unified set of global financial reporting standards, but lately, some steam seems to have gone out of the agency’s push.Last week, the SEC finally issued its long-promised roadmap for the mandatory ad...

By David McCann • Nov. 19, 2008

Big Business Finding It Tough to Alter Its Stripes

It’s been nearly two years since Democrats took control of Congress, but K Street’s corporate offices are still seeing red.Unlike many lobby shops and law firms that solidified their bipartisanship after the midterm elections and often have Democrats heading their advocacy operations, most Fortun...

By Roll Call Staff • Nov. 19, 2008

Oppenheimer Sued by Mass. over ARS

A Massachusetts state administrative complaint made Oppenheimer & Co. the latest financial services firm to be accused of violating securities laws in its sale of auction rate securities.Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said in the complaint that Oppenheimer “improperly conduct...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 18, 2008

Dutch Treat? Aegon Aims for TARP Funds

The attraction of the Treasury Department’s promised Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars is spreading — across the Atlantic. Dutch insurer Aegon NV said it may buy Maryland-based thrift Suburban Federal Savings Bank, to qualify Aegon for the government TARP bailout program. “This is part of our...

By Roy Harris and Stephen Taub • Nov. 18, 2008

Maverick Owner Cuban Hit with Insider Charge

Billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of pro basketball’s Dallas Mavericks, was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of engaging in illegal insider trading in an effort to save $750,000.The case stems from his investment in Mamma.com Inc., an Internet search engine company now known as Coper...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 17, 2008

S&P: Mortgage Securities Are Safer than Collateral

Under fire from critics who say the rating agencies contributed to the financial crisis by slapping sterling grades on questionable securities, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has issued a new report contending that Grade AAA securitization paper might be more immune to losses than previou...

By David Katz • Nov. 14, 2008

NY Banking Probe Target: $250,000 Bonuses

How big does a bonus have to be to appear on the radar screen of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigation of possible compensation abuses by financial firms receiving government bailout money? Apparently, it’s $250,000.According to the Associated Press, Cuomo has subpoenaed Bank of ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 13, 2008

Ex-HR Exec Charged with Health-care Embezzlement

A former head of human resources for electronics firm Hitachi America Ltd. was charged with defrauding the company’s health care plan of about $8 million.Dennis Dowd, formerly the HR senior manager of the subsidiary of Japan-based Hitachi Ltd., was charged with one count of embezzlement in connec...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 13, 2008

Blue Coat, Ex-CFO Settle over Backdating

Network security company Blue Coat Systems Inc. and its former chief financial officer, Robert P. Verheecke, agreed to settle Securities and Exchange Commission stock-option backdating charges.The regulator accused Blue Coat and Verheecke of providing backdated grants to executives and employees ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 12, 2008

EU Fails its Spending Audit, Again

The European Court of Auditors has, for the 14th year running, refused to give a clean bill of health to the EU’s spending. In its annual report published on November 10th, the auditors give their verdict on the EU’s budget for 2007. They warn of continuing problems with spending on cohesion, whi...

By European Voice Staff • Nov. 12, 2008

Getting Your Request on Obama’s Agenda

Trade groups see next January 20, President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration day, as their version of Christmas Day. So they’re getting their corporate wish lists ready now. And by petitioning him before he takes office, they hope to see their pet projects addressed in his first three months as ...

By Sarah Johnson • Nov. 11, 2008

White Out at SEC

John White, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance, will leave the agency at the end of the year. He plans to rejoin the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he spent more than 25 years as a partner before joining the SEC in March 2006. White i...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 7, 2008

Ten Top Earnings-Call Questions

Shocked by the suddenness and depth of the economy’s free-fall, many companies are choosing to provide less guidance on future financial performance in their earnings releases and conference calls, investor relations experts say.Some companies that had been giving quarterly guidance are shifting ...

By David McCann • Nov. 5, 2008

Siemens Reserves $1.3 Billion for Probe

Siemens AG said it will set aside $1.3 billion (€1 billion) in fiscal 2008 to settle ongoing corruption investigations with authorities in Germany and the U.S.The German conglomerate said that the current estimate is based on the status of discussions being held between the company and authoritie...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 5, 2008

Natural Light

Corporate social responsibility reports have become so bloated that even the World Wildlife Fund doesn’t want to read many of them anymore, says Oliver Greenfield, head of sustainable business and markets at the nonprofit organisation. To recapture the interest of stakeholders such as the WWF in ...

By John Zhu • Nov. 4, 2008

Building Up

Three years ago, when Roche UK tired of having its 1,100 staff working at four sites just north of London and decided to build new headquarters at the site, it was visionary. The £50m (€63m), three-storey building features timber-framed walling, ground-water cooling from 100-metre-deep boreholes ...

By Christopher Watts • Nov. 4, 2008

Will Feds’ Subprime Cases Fall Flat?

The government may have a very difficult time pinning fraud raps on financial institutions over their packaging and sales of subprime mortgage-backed securities, according to the former deputy director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division.Peter Bresnan, who won his gre...

By David McCann • Nov. 3, 2008

Duck and Cover

The near collapse of insurer American International Group in September put many corporate executives on edge. The reason for the nervousness is that AIG has enjoyed a market-leading position for directors’ and officers’ liability (D&O) insurance — a cover that, in addition to long-time buyers...

By Graham Buck • Nov. 3, 2008

French, Dutch bail-outs given green light

France and the Netherlands have joined the rapidly growing list of countries whose financial rescue packages have been agreed by the European Commission. The commission, which is charged with ensuring that state aid does not distort the internal market, said today that both schemes, which largely...

By European Voice Staff • Oct. 31, 2008

PCAOB Picks 11 New Advisory Members

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board appointed 11 new members to its Standing Advisory Group for the 2009-2010 term and made three reappointments for additional two-year terms. The 14 new and reappointed members, selected from 80 nominations received by the board, will join the 20 curren...

By Roy Harris • Oct. 30, 2008

Bank Bonuses Are Under Review in NY

Warning that banks could be prosecuted in New York if their bonus payments are considered “illegal fraudulent conveyances,” state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is demanding detailed information about bonus-pool allocations from the boards of nine institutions that received $125 billion from the F...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 29, 2008