Emanuel May Be Headed to White House

In a move that could set off a high-profile leadership scramble in the House, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) has been offered the job of White House chief of staff by President-elect Obama, ABC News is reporting.Emanuel, a veteran of the Clinton White House, has not yet given Obam...

By Roll Call Staff • Nov. 5, 2008

Hunting for Scalps

AMERICANS are turning creative as they strive to make sense of the crisis. On October 29th a group of artists will stage a “literal meltdown” by placing a 1,500lb (680kg) ice sculpture of the word “economy” in Manhattan’s Foley Square. The installation will, according to one collaborator, “metaph...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 23, 2008

More Than Words

Sympathy is not something often felt for a company with a corruption-riddled past. So what makes Siemens different? Two years after an avalanche of accusations hit the German electronics and engineering firm, anger, disgust and even disappointment certainly prevail. But it’s hard not to feel a li...

By Janet Kersnar • Oct. 3, 2008

Deception Perception

From financial-statement shenanigans to fraudulent billing schemes, corporate frauds can be elusive, to say the least. Fraudsters usually operate alone, rarely have criminal records, and are nearly as likely to be female as male. No wonder the typical case persists two full years. Finance executi...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 1, 2008

Best Intentions

“We must become a good company,” the chief executive declares, having just returned from a conference featuring the philanthropic Google Guys, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. “And I don’t just mean good in the business sense; I mean good in the ‘Don’t be evil’ sense. You know about the On...

By Matthew Bishop • Sept. 1, 2008

More Holders Back “Say on Pay” in 2008

With the vote by shareholders at Valero Energy Corp. a shareholder-voting majority at 10 companies supported nonbinding resolutions calling for a so-called Say on Pay policy during this year’s proxy season, according to Risk Metrics.Altogether, the shareholder proposals — offering holders a vote ...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 27, 2008

It Takes a Crisis

“Our new procedures go all the way down to the 434,000th employee,” says Joseph Kaeser, the notably unembattled CFO of German industrial giant Siemens AG. New procedures certainly seemed called for in the wake of the company’s infamous bribes-for-contracts scandal, which came to light in 2006 and...

By Scott Leibs • July 15, 2008

Breeden’s Governance Block-buster

At H&R Block, Richard Breeden has put his governance policies where his mouth is.Block, for which the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman now serves as company chairman, announced sweeping changes to corporate policies at the tax preparation company. Breeden, now a hedge fund a...

By Stephen Taub • June 18, 2008

Clawbacks Claw Their Way into Corporate Strategy

Companies are catching onto the idea of clawback contract provisions — some of which are designed to punish executives for faulty financial statements — according to a new report from The Corporate Library.Clawbacks came into fashion in the wake of corporate scandals earlier this decade, and were...

By Alan Rappeport • June 4, 2008

Shareholders Speak, Banks Listen

The subprime crisis and credit crunch led to shake-ups at two major banks that recently faced irate shareholders: Wachovia and Washington Mutual.Wachovia announced that chief executive officer Ken Thompson “is retiring at the request of the board.” His interim replacement as CEO was current chair...

By Stephen Taub • June 2, 2008

Derek Higgs, 1944-2008

Sir Derek Higgs, an influential British financier, died suddenly from a heart attack on April 28th. He will be best remembered in corporate boardrooms as the author of a widely respected report, published in 2003, about the effectiveness of non-executive directors. Amid accounting and governance ...

By Jason Karaian • June 2, 2008

Not-So-Modest Proposals

Directors would do well to heed their shareholders, if only out of concern for their jobs, according to new research by a trio of business school professors. The study, which examined the results of 620 majority-vote proposals (all dealing with governance issues), found that directors who failed ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • June 1, 2008

Strange Bedfellows

Last month Tom Katzenmeyer, vice-president of investor relations at Limited Brands, met representatives of the government of the Canadian province of Alberta. Limited Brands is an American apparel firm with sales of $10.1 billion last year; its best-known division is Victoria’s Secret, which sell...

By Economist Staff • May 27, 2008

The Real Price of Payoffs, According to E&Y

Corporate corruption is growing globally despite international efforts to curb the palm-greasing practices of companies, according to a new survey by Ernst & Young.In recent years regulators have cracked down hard on illicit practices such as bribery, drawing on tougher legislation and using ...

By Alan Rappeport • May 19, 2008

Dubious Claims

Even more astounding than employees who claim items such as lap dancers and cat food as business expenses is that most employers approve them.Around 12% of employee expenses fall outside of corporate policy, though managers reject only 0.5% of claims, according to a report from expense management...

By Laura Cameron • April 7, 2008

Are CFOs Fit for Outside Board Seats?

Citigroup’s announcement on Monday that it plans to stress finance and investing know-how in filling upcoming openings on its board of directors could be the tip of an iceberg.More financial-services companies whose earnings were hijacked by their investments in subprime mortgage-backed securitie...

By David McCann • April 3, 2008

Payment Fraud on the Rise

Every year fraud detection gets more sophisticated, yet the prevalence of fraud — and the costs — continues to rise.In its latest survey of payment fraud, the Association for Financial Professionals found that 71 percent of organizations experienced payment fraud in 2007 and a third of them saw m...

By Alan Rappeport • March 14, 2008

The New Complex

There once was a chief executive who was furious at how complex his company had grown. To prove his point, he often waved in the air a routine document that needed as many as 25 signatures. It wasn’t the heavy bureaucratic burden that peeved him. Rather, he was annoyed that, by the time the docum...

By Janet Kersnar • March 3, 2008

To Catch a Thief

Even after losing Société Générale €3.9 billion, rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel couldn’t help but pour salt on the wound. “The fact alone that I didn’t take any days off in 2007 should have alerted my supervisors,” he told French financial investigators. “It’s one of the elementary rules of internal...

By Laura Cameron • March 3, 2008

Jailed and Now Broke

Vencent A. Donlan, a former stock options administrator at Wireless Facilities Inc., has settled civil charges of stock and stock options theft, adding hefty financial penalties to the lengthy prison sentence already handed down.Donlan and his wife, Robin D. Colls Donlan, who was named as a relie...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 26, 2008

The Class Action Resurgence Is Just Beginning

A 43-percent surge in securities class action lawsuits in 2007 — after a year-long lull — likely will continue, growing into a “perfect storm” of swelling litigation by this year, a study by The Corporate Library predicts. Among the results from the continued rise, which the study links strongly ...

By Roy Harris • Feb. 21, 2008

Then and Now: What Lerach Told Us

Editor’s Note:Six years ago, plaintiff’s attorney William Lerach sat down with CFO magazine to give his view on the cause of the financial meltdowns at Enron, Worldcom, and other companies of the day. As was his wont, Lerach pulled no punches, blaming the Public Securities Litigation Reform Act, ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Feb. 11, 2008

Value Judgement

The burgeoning “carbon neutral” and “fair trade” policies espoused by companies are more than just marketing, according to Heidi Welsh. The analyst at RiskMetrics says that the consultancy’s clients, especially institutional investors, increasingly include information about companies’ “sustainabi...

By Laura Cameron • Feb. 4, 2008

CFO to Testify Against Boss in Escrow Theft

The chief financial officer of a Minneapolis title and escrow firm pleaded guilty to embezzling $135,000, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.Christine Hein, who had served as CFO of Profile Title & Escrow Corp. since 2002, admitted she diverted the sum from a secret escrow account for ...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 21, 2008

La Vita Less Dolce

Can you say “Sarbanes-Oxley” in Italian? According to some experts, it sounds like “law 262,” though this is not an exact translation.Passed in 2005, two years after the massive accounting scandal at Italian dairy group Parmalat, 262 requires a manager at listed companies in the country to sign o...

By Tim Burke • Dec. 10, 2007