These are some of the compliance related stories that recently caught my attention.
Experts Ponder Role of Trump Organization Compliance Counsel by SAMUEL RUBENFELD in WSJ.com’s Risk & Compliance Journal
As compliance counsel, the person’s ethical obligation will be to the organization, not to the president, making the role less robust than retaining an independent lawyer to prevent potential conflicts, said Daniel Alonso, a managing director at compliance risk consulting firm Exiger who previously served as a member of the New York State Commission on Public Integrity. [More…]
SEC Dings BlackRock for Pre-taliation Clauses BY: MATT KELLY in Radical Compliance
Still, BlackRock did insert its pre-taliation language after the SEC adopted its whistleblower rules. That implies an awareness that employees might want to cash out by approaching regulators, and a desire to persuade employees otherwise. That annoyed the SEC enough for the $344,000 fine. [More…]
US Appeals Court Dodges Scope of Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Protection by C. Ryan Barber in the The National Law Journal
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled unanimously against John Verble, a former Morgan Stanley Smith Barney financial adviser who claims he was fired in 2013 for cooperating with the FBI in an investigation. A Tennessee federal trial judge earlier ruled Verble was not entitled to whistleblower protection because he did not provide his insider-trading claims to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. [More…]
MARY JO WHITE’S SEC TENURE ENDS WITH FLURRY OF ENFORCEMENT SETTLEMENTS by N. Peter Rasmussen in Bloomberg BNA
As Mary Jo White’s tenure at the helm of the Securities and Exchange Commission comes to a close, the Commission’s Enforcement Division announced the settlement of a series of actions generating more than $140 million in sanctions over four business days. Companies settled charges ranging from Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations to improperly issued American Depository Receipts. [More…]
Compliance Is Ruff: A Dog’s Approach by by Kimberly Lansford and Carol Lansford, with special guest Gabe II.