Feds Say Skilling Tried to ‘Deceive’ SEC

Federal prosecutors have alleged that former Enron Corp. president Jeffrey Skilling attempted to “deceive” the Securities and Exchange Commission in a December 2001 deposition, according to The Wall Street Journal.Skilling’s sale of 500,000 Enron shares, on September 17 of that year, came less th...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 4, 2006

Business Travel Goes Private

With commercial airlines flying into bankruptcy more frequently than flights arrive at O’Hare International, business travelers are increasingly looking for alternatives — in particular, jet-card programs and charter companies.Six-year-old Weymouth, Mass.-based Sentient Jet Inc. is proof. The com...

By Laura DeMars • Jan. 1, 2006

Park-n-Load

Legally speaking, companies have every right to prohibit employees from bringing guns to the workplace. Prohibiting them from bringing guns to the parking lot of the workplace…well, that appears to be another matter entirely.In fact, lawmakers in several states are considering bills that would ba...

By Karen M. Kroll • Jan. 1, 2006

Divided Loyalties

Brace yourself for a shock: your company’s real estate broker may not always have your best interests at heart.True, this is probably about as stunning as, say, the revelation that securities analysts once wrote flattering things about banking clients. But, like the complex relationships of the p...

By Don Durfee • Dec. 29, 2005

Enron’s Causey Pleads Guilty

Former Enron Corp. chief accounting officer Richard Causey agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud during a re-arraignment hearing on Wednesday afternoon, according to published reports.Causey faced 36 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, lying to auditors, and money laundering for he...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 28, 2005

New Math, New Sentence for Dynegy’s Olis

Federal prosecutors are recommending a 15-year prison sentence for Jamie Olis — once a midlevel executive at Houston-based energy company Dynegy Inc. — for his role in the company’s accounting scandal, reported the Houston Chronicle.Olis and his co-conspirators — his former boss, Gene Shannon Fos...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 21, 2005

Merck Wins Stock-drop Appeal

A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit against Merck & Co. Inc. even though the drugmaker had been “treading a fine line” in its disclosures, reported The Legal Intelligencer.In June 2001, Merck’s share price fell after The Wall Street Journal reported that its subsidi...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 20, 2005

Who Should Lead Compliance?

U.S. companies have had to comply with international trade, federal, and state regulatory requirements for generations. But the combination of new regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and closer scrutiny from investors and boards of directors have made complying with regulation a mo...

By 10Rule • Dec. 20, 2005

SEC Drops Case Against TenFold Execs

The Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped all charges against the former CEO of software development company TenFold Corp. as well as three former finance executives, according to a press release fired off by Morrison & Foerster, the law firm representing the former chief executive.I...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 19, 2005

SEC Adopts New Filing Deadlines

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted new deadlines for filing quarterly and annual reports, depending upon the size of the company.In phasing in the final stage of its accelerated filing deadlines, the SEC created a new category called “large accelerated filers,” which includes comp...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 15, 2005

Small Companies May Be Excused from 404

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies has recommended to the full SEC that smaller businesses no longer be required to comply with the Section 404 provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley.The advisory committee voted 18 to 1 that most companies with a market ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 15, 2005

Cox Promises Policy on Large Fines

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox has said that the regulator will soon set a firm policy on levying large monetary fines, according to Reuters.“We’ve been spending a great deal of time on it,” Cox told reporters after an SEC meeting in Washington, D.C. “It’s helped all ...

By Stephen Taub and Tim Reason • Dec. 14, 2005

404 Costs to Drop, Big Four Maintain

The cost of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, which governs internal controls over financial reporting, will drop “substantially” in a company’s second year of implementation, concludes a study by consultancy CRA International (formerly Charles River Associates) and commissioned by the Big Four acco...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 9, 2005

SEC to Revisit ‘One Size Fits All’

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies is expected to make preliminary recommendations for its final report when it meets next Wednesday.According to an agenda published on the SEC website, the committee will vote on recommendations regarding four ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 8, 2005

SEC Enforcement Aims High

The target of a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action is increasingly likely to be a large company, according to Reuters, citing SEC data.In fiscal 2005, 24 percent of SEC financial reporting actions involved Fortune 500 companies, their executives, or those they do business with,...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 8, 2005

Winds of Change

Many large corporations in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas had prepared for the devastating hurricane season of 2005, assuring the continual flow of business through well-oiled disaster-recovery plans. But it’s the season’s aftermath that could take them by surprise: subs...

By Russ Banham • Dec. 8, 2005

Former Hollinger CFO Pleads Not Guilty

Former Hollinger International Inc. chief financial officer John Boultbee has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges, according to published reports.Judge Amy St. Eve of the U.S. District Court in Chicago ordered Boultbee, who lives in Vancouver, to post a $1.5 million cash bond and to restrict his ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 7, 2005

American Corporate Reputations Fall

The overall reputation of U.S. companies fell in 2005, according to a new survey conducted jointly by Harris Interactive and the New York-based Reputation Institute and reported by The Wall Street Journal.This year, 20,000 U.S. adults evaluated companies they were familiar with on 20 attributes t...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 6, 2005

Friedman’s Will Pay $2 Million in Settlement

Jewelry retailer Friedman’s Inc. has agreed to pay $2 million to the consumer-fraud fund of the United States Postal Inspection Service as part of a settlement of securities fraud charges, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.In U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New Y...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 1, 2005

Fine Time at the SEC

Records were made to be broken. But when the Securities and Exchange Commission levied an unheard-of $10 million fine against Xerox in April 2002, few could have imagined the amounts that other companies would soon be shelling out. Less than four years later, the record fine — now held by WorldCo...

By Tim Reason • Dec. 1, 2005

Judge Drops Two Charges Against Scrushy

An Alabama judge has dismissed two civil fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against Richard Scrushy, the founder, former chairman, and former chief executive officer of HealthSouth Corp.In June, of course, Scrushy was found not guilty of criminal charges related to th...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 1, 2005

Former Gemstar CFO Reaches Plea Deal

A former chief financial officer of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. has agreed to settle charges stemming from the company’s accounting scandal, according to the Associated Press.The terms of the deal made with Elsie Leung, reportedly announced during a court hearing yesterday, were not discl...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 30, 2005

SEC Votes to Allow Electronic Proxies

In a move expected to save U.S. corporations about $500 million or more a year in printing and postage costs, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to allow companies to provide proxies to shareholders via the Internet, according to the Associated Press.Supported by all five commissioners,...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 29, 2005

GAO Criticizes SEC Internal Controls

The Government Accountability Office has asserted that the Securities and Exchange Commission did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of the end of its September 2005 fiscal year.The congressional watchdog agency cited continued material internal-control weaknesses...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 23, 2005

Former Hollinger CFO Indicted with Black

Former Hollinger International chief financial officer John Boultbee, former chairman and chief executive officer Conrad Black, and two other executives have been indicted for stealing $51.8 million from the company. They were accused of wire fraud and mail fraud in an 11-count expanded indictmen...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 18, 2005