Document Retention

A federal district court judge in Arkansas ordered sanctions against Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. earlier this year for destroying documents related to a product-liability case. Although the documents were shredded in accordance with the company’s existing document-retention policy, the judge rul...

By Joan Urdang • Oct. 1, 2002

Transatlantic Answers

Politicians, regulators, and corporate executives in the United States can be downright chauvinistic about the American way of doing business. Indeed, during the 1990s, many U.S. executives crowed about the superiority of their free-market system. Conversely, others privately belittled certain co...

By Craig Schneider • Oct. 1, 2002

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Ethics: Good for Goodness’ Sake

Three years ago, when CFO magazine surveyed 500 chief executive officers about what they thought was most important in a chief financial officer, 84 percent of them ranked personal integrity just behind financial expertise. Evidently, CEOs were hungry to hand over the financial reins to a few hon...

By Jeffrey L. Seglin • Oct. 1, 2002

Ethics

The problem with codes of ethics is that the people who need them most don’t use them. But that hasn’t stopped two prominent organizations for finance and investor-relations professionals from recently reworking their codes of ethics.In the wake of major ethical lapses at Enron and Andersen, the ...

By Kris Frieswick • July 1, 2002

Whose Company Is It, Anyway?

Today, executives at the New York Stock Exchange announced new rules for improving corporate governance for NYSE-listed companies. The proposal, which still must be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, requires companies on the exchange to maintain a majority of independent directo...

By Jennifer Caplan • June 6, 2002

Bad Sign

Fraud comes in all sizes. In late February, a former Bear, Stearns & Co. secretary pleaded guilty to using disappearing ink to make more than $800,000 fade from her boss’s bank accounts, according to an Associated Press report. Anamarie Giambrone used the trick pen to write checks for senior ...

By Marie Leone • April 1, 2002

Membership Has No Privileges

In 16 years of professional basketball, Julius Erving never had trouble controlling the boards. As a member of the New Jersey Nets, and later the Philadelphia 76ers, Dr. J dominated the glass with his sweeping offensive rebounds and above-the-rim acrobatics.These days, Erving may not have such an...

By Marie Leone • Feb. 28, 2002

Families in the Boardroom: Under the Influence

The conflict has turned decidedly nasty. Walter Hewlett, son of one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard (HP) and a member of the company’s board, missed a board meeting in July that discussed a proposed merger with Compaq Computer. Why was he not there? Because, reported CNET News, an online servi...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 16, 2001

The Corporate Connection

Last summer, Panamanian officials acting at the request of the U.S. Customs Service seized a Bell model 407 helicopter belonging to Victor Carranza, a Colombian who, according to U.S. and Colombian investigators, has ties to both drug traffickers and the Colombian right-wing paramilitaries who of...

By Tim Reason • March 1, 2001

Shadow of a Doubt

In the spring of 1999, when the Securities and Exchange Commission needed a staff accountant in its enforcement division, Douglas Boe figured he was the man. Then 37 and an assistant controller in a division of Hughes Electronics Corp., Boe had an impeccable finance pedigree: a BS and an MS in ac...

By Stephen Barr • Feb. 1, 2001

Firestone’s Credibility

Can Firestone bounce back from its current woes and restore its badly damaged credibility? Risk management experts suggest that if the company accepts blame and fixes its current problems, there’s hope for the future. But it won’t be easy.Since August, Firestone has been in the spotlight, recalli...

By Michelle Gabrielle • Dec. 20, 2000

Standing By “Chainsaw Al”

It appears that Russell Kersh is standing by his man. During the infamous, iron-fisted reign of Albert “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap as chief executive, Kersh served as Sunbeam Corp.’s vice chairman and CFO. Boasting of his exploits during the company’s meteoric rise, Kersh, who also acted as Dunlap’s hen...

By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 30, 2000

Honestly, Now

Have you ever been in the middle of an ethical dilemma at work and asked yourself, “I wonder what Abe Lincoln would have done?” Craig Gilbert has–often enough to have documented his thoughts in a course book entitled Honest Abe Teaches CPA Ethics.Gilbert grew up in Springfield, Ill., in the shado...

By Leslie Schultz • Nov. 1, 2000

Jailhouse Shock

Cosmo Corigliano will likely wake up behind bars this month as a result of his role in inflating the earnings of CUC International Inc.–misstatements that came to light after CUC merged with HFS Inc. in 1997 to form Cendant Corp. The 40-year-old former CFO pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud in...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 1, 2000

Book ‘Em

Is there a CFO crime spree under way? Several CFOs made big news this summer not for making their numbers, but for getting them.In July, CFO magazine reported that former CFO Patrick Bennett received a 30-year jail sentence for bilking thousands of investors. His firm, Bennett Funding Group, in S...

By Tim Reason • Aug. 23, 2000

The Secret Life of the Big Five

Do some of the Big Five have something to hide? Now with the Securities and Exchange Commission engineering a review of the major accounting firms’ independence, we’ll soon find out.Until the review agreement was reached, the Big Five eagerly wanted to look forward, not back. And it seemed to Lyn...

By Stephen Barr • July 1, 2000

A Little Privacy, Please

Like all revolutions, the Internet revolution has a dark side. Along with online shopping and stock trading with the click of a mouse, the Web has brought an invasion of its users’ privacy that only Big Brother could love.And no longer is the threat a futuristic one. DoubleClick, an Internet adve...

By Joseph McCafferty • May 1, 2000

Emission Incentives

As many U.S. companies fight global efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, a European giant is busy figuring out thecheapest way to get the job done.BP Amoco has piloted a carbon- dioxide emission-trading system among 12 business units for the past year. The pilot has worked so well to coax man...

By Bill Birchard • Dec. 1, 1999

Forum: Out of Control?

Most banks understand the importance of having appropriate internal controls in place to protect against risk. However, regulators are concerned that there appears to be some slippage in their attention. And if a highly regulated industry like banking deserves scrutiny, it stands to reason that C...

By Steven M. Roberts • Aug. 1, 1998

Forum: Seven Panaceas, One Solution

Many methods of ensuring corporate accountability have been advanced during the past 200 years, but seven have achieved prominence. Taken alone, each method is more a panacea than a true cure. Indeed, too often the presence of only one of these deterrents to bad behavior brings a false–and danger...

By Robert A.G. Monks • July 1, 1998