We have passed the Autumnal equinox and are heading into the dark nights of winter. Maybe some of these of compliance-related stories will keep you awake during the longer nights.
Why Don’t General Counsels Stop Corporate Crime? by Sureyya Burcu Avci and H. Nejat Seyhun in the HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Evidence shows that in spite of these reforms enacted in SOX and explicit provisions and responsibilities given to corporate attorneys, most of the whistle-blowing in case of corporate fraud comes from employees (17%), non-financial market regulators (13%), and media (13%). [3] Clearly absent from this list are top in-house corporate counsels (GCs). In this paper, we investigate the potential reasons for the failure of corporate counsels to report and prevent corporate crime. [More…]
Ex-official at SEC says whistleblowers do crucial work by Gretchen Morgenson
McKessy said that whistleblowers under the SEC’s program had prospered because the SEC guaranteed anonymity to those who come forward. “The SEC’s devotion to maintaining the confidentiality of whistleblowers is the biggest factor in the program’s success,” he said. [More…]
SEC delivering on promise to scrutinize private equity firms by Todd Ehret, Regulatory Intelligence in Reuters
Assets under management by PE managers grew to $700 billion in 2000 thanks to the technology and dot-com boom. They have now swelled to more than $4.2 trillion according to the 2016 Preqin Private Equity Report. This tremendous growth in assets now dwarfs total hedge fund assets of approximately $2.8 trillion.
This industry largely went unregulated until the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 which required PE and hedge fund managers to register by 2012. Two recently settled enforcement actions involving prominent PE firms added to the growing list of PE managers tripped up by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) probe into PE firms. This, along with a handful of other expensive SEC settlements, and prominent public warnings by regulators to the industry are noteworthy and prompted our review below. We also highlight the top areas of concern and offer some suggestions. [More…]
Andrew Weissmann On The FCPA – It Is “Very Easy For The People At The DOJ And SEC To Basically Impose A Tax For Doing Business” In Certain Countries by the FCPA Professor
FCPA Professor was the first to highlight the seeming irony when vocal FCPA enforcement critic and reform advocate Andrew Weissmann was selected to head the DOJ’s fraud section in January 2015 and how Weissmann should have stayed true to his former self when unveiling the DOJ’s “FCPA Pilot Program” in April 2016.
Weissmann’s prior positions on the FCPA are nicely captured in a 2010 panel event in which he speaks at great length regarding various aspects of the FCPA. [More…]