Here are some interesting stories from the past week:
SEC Union: Staff Need Not Check BlackBerrys After Hours by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week‘s Enforcement Action
In short, Khuzami and his senior colleagues can call, email and text SEC Enforcement staff all they want after hours–but can’t do much about it if staff members fail to pick up or respond until the next business hours begin. Chapter 293 President Greg Gilman stated in February that “a great many employees expressed concerns about being ‘on call’ 24/7. This is the type of quality of life issue about which we feel the Union is in the best position to make a big difference for SEC employees.” Gilman added that “it wouldn’t be fair to characterize employees as lazy,” according to Business Week.
FBI Uses Terror-Probe Tactics on Fraud by Devlin Barrett in the Wall Street Journal
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials in New York are increasingly employing tools and techniques used to hunt terrorists to take aim at a different kind of criminal: white-collar con artists and inside traders.
My iPad? A Great Bundle of Sticks by Andrew McAfee
“I feel about it the way Winston Churchill felt about democracy, which is that it’s the worst system for organizing economic activity except for all those other forms that have been tried. I believe that America’s extraordinary track record of innovation and creativity exists not despite its IP laws, but at least in part because of them. I applaud the fact that IP creators and owners have strong rights to exclude, even when these creators and owners are big, powerful corporations. And I really like the bundle of sticks contained in my iPad.”
DOJ Guidance and the FCPA by James Parkinson in the FCPA Professor
This suggests another question: what would the commentary landscape look like today if the DOJ published a new Federal Register notice soliciting “views concerning the extent to which compliance with 15 U.S.C. 78dd-1 and 78dd-2 would be enhanced and the business community assisted by further clarification of the provisions of the anti-bribery provisions through the issuance of guidelines”?
Bigger, Stronger, Faster: The PCAOB After The Supreme Court Ruling by Francine McKenna at re: The Auditors
The Supreme Court will decide on Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB before their session is concluded on June 28th. Whether the PCAOB is or isn’t declared unconstitutional, there are some key gaps in the original Sarbanes-Oxley legislation that should be addressed. Now is the time to give the PCAOB the tools it needs to be as effective as possible.
TRACE Releases First Summary of Global Ant-Bribery Activity from the WrageBlog
The good news is enforcement of international anti-bribery laws is increasing. The bad news is many countries have yet to leave the anti-bribery enforcement starting line. TRACE International released its first-ever summary of worldwide anti-bribery activity today, and it is evident from its data that enforcement is gaining momentum. The TRACE Global Enforcement Report (GER) 2010 summarizes 33 years of enforcement activity by nations around the world.