Do you pull into a parking space or back in? Does it matter? Do you need a rule? The other day I pulled into a parking lot and saw one of these “head in parking only” signs. It bothered me. Why does it matter whether I parked with my headlights in or my taillights in? … Read more »
Year: 2011
SEC Is Serious About Expert Networks and Gets a New Logo
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a hedge fund and four hedge fund portfolio managers and analysts with illegally traded on confidential information obtained from technology company employees moonlighting as expert network consultants. Even bigger news is that the SEC came up with this fancy new logo to brand its expert network investigations and prosecutions. … Read more »
Complying with Regulations and Ethics
If you are running a compliance program you spend a lot of time reading regulations and trying to figure out how they apply to your company. Some are very clear and make it easy to understand what you need to do. Unfortunately, many are not. Are there corruption and ethical issues tied to your interpretation? … Read more »
Popping the Irish Bubble
In compliance, you need to learn from your mistakes so you can prevent future problems. There were many mistakes that lead to the 2008 financial crisis, not just in the United States, but also abroad. Michael Lewis wrote The Big Short, taking a look at the Unites States financial crisis and has written great stories … Read more »
Private Fund Compliance Forum
Thousands of private equity firms are scrambling to meet the July deadline to register with the SEC. New disclosure rules are being proposed for private equity managers with more than $1bn in assets. PEI Media is producing its second annual PEI Private Fund Compliance Forum 2011 to help prepare you prepare for the new wave … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for February 4
Here are some recent compliance-related stories that caught my eye: Leadership (as told by the Pointy-Haired Boss) Paper Lion Ahead for SEC’s Pay-to-Play Exemption? by Allix Magaziner in the Pay to Play Blog On March 14, the SEC’s pay-to-play rule will come into effect and there is growing concern that the rule’s exemption for accidental … Read more »
A Criminological Perspective on Business Ethics
White-collar crime has a strong influence on business ethics. Joseph Heath uses a criminological perspective to help illuminate some traditional questions in business ethics in his paper: “Business Ethics and Moral Motivation: A Criminological Perspective” Heath starts off with the premise that the ‘‘ethics scandals’’ in the early years of the twenty-first century was not … Read more »
Do Hedge Funds Create Criminals?
Lynn Stout takes the recent charges against arrest of Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, and the recent raids on expert networks as an indictment of the entire hedge fund industry. She makes the mistake of using a few bad apples to state the whole industry is corrupt. The vast majority of hedge funds … Read more »
The Case for Professional Boards
If you want to improve governance at a corporation, do you need professional directors? Did SOX merely add a layer of legal obligations of board, and do little to improve the quality of those serving as directors? Robert C. Pozen makes the case in The Case for Professional Boards in the December issue of the … Read more »
The SEC Wants to Know if You Are Systemically Important
The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a new rule that would require advisers to private funds to report information for use by the Financial Stability Oversight Council in monitoring risk to the U.S. financial system. Sections 404 and 406 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires the SEC to gather this … Read more »