Illinois Public Act 096-0006 became effective on April 3, 2009, making significant changes to the operations of Illinois retirement systems, pension funds and investment boards. The Act imposes increased oversight and accountability requirements on the boards of trustees, fiduciaries and investment advisers, managers and consultants. The provisions apply not only at the state level, but … Read more »
Year: 2009
New MBAs and Their Code of Ethics
I respect the ambition of a group of recently graduated Harvard Business School MBA’s to promulgate a code of ethics. A story in the New York Times publicized this initiative. “When a new crop of future business leaders graduates from the Harvard Business School next week, many of them will be taking a new oath … Read more »
Timekeeping with Lego Bricks
The life of a law firm lawyer typically involves a great deal of time-keeping. During my thirteen years at a big law firm I saw lots of different systems. All were flawed and all had weaknesses. Certainly, none were fun. But this Lego brick time keeping system looks like fun! As the author points out, … Read more »
Generational Differences in the Use of Workplace Technology
Is there a gap between generations of legal and white collar professionals in terms of technology in the workplace? LexisNexis conducted a survey to see if there really is a gap and how big it is: LexisNexis Technology Gap Survey (.pdf). After looking at the survey results, I see that there clearly is a gap. … Read more »
Investor Relations 2.0 After This Proxy Season
Hopefully your annual meeting of investors or shareholders went better than the annual meeting for Fortis. Shareholders in Ghent, Belgium threw shoes, coins and ballot boxes. (There is even video.) Broc Romanek put together his thoughts on Proxy Season Developments: Ten Signs that Things are Changing Online. First Use of Live Internet Voting Soliciting Shareholder … Read more »
Supreme Court to Decide on Investment Company Act Case
There has been a lot of focus on the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the PCAOB case: Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (08-861). It squarely addresses an interesting administrative law question. I also find it interesting that this case originates from the last bout of financial fraud in the press (the collapse of Enron) and comes … Read more »
SEC Releases Proposed Custody Rules for Investment Advisers
On May 14, the Securities Exchange Commission said they were proposing New Custody Rules for Investment Advisers. They summarized the proposed rules but did not release the actual text of the proposed rules. Now the proposed rules are available in Release No. IA-2876 (.pdf). Comments must be received on or before July 28, 2009. SUMMARY: … Read more »
SEC Implements New Compliance Program (On Itself)
After the embarrassing news that two of its attorneys are accused of insider trading, the SEC has decided to strengthen its internal compliance program to guard against inappropriate employee securities trading. “It only makes sense that we have a world-class compliance program – just as we expect from those we regulate,” said Chairman Schapiro. “The … Read more »
JD Supra Launches Law Centers
JD Supra is a repository of free legal information shared by legal professionals. It gives you a platform to publish work to a wide audience, maintain a profile and get credited for your experience. Today, JD Supra launched a new feature they call Law Centers. This feature focuses JD Supra content into subject areas for … Read more »
FCPA and the Wall Street Journal
Not since the Siemens FCPA case have I seen the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act show up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. That case was highlighted because of billion dollar fine. The big part of today’s story was the number of active FCPA cases. According to the story there are at least … Read more »