These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention.
In Defense of Compliance Checklists by Michael Volkov in Corruption, Crime & Compliance
If a compliance officer can persuade the business side to take responsibility for compliance, compliance officers should develop simple checklists and other mechanisms to support the business. For example, the CCO could prepare a checklist for the onboarding of a new third party under the company’s due diligence policy, or a checklist for sponsoring a government official’s trip to company headquarters for product marketing and demonstration sessions. In these cases, the CCO can make the process transparent to the business managers and employees and provide them a clear and concise tool they can use to ensure that they follow company compliance tools. [More…]
Should hedge funds be concerned about the risk of insider trading on alternative data? by Ian Allison in IBT
But the brave new world of big data-driven investing is something of a regulatory grey area. At what point does some exclusive, real time look through into a company’s performance constitute insider trading? In legal terms this means trading on material, non-public information received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential. [More…]
So You Want to Buy a Stake in a Private Equity Manager? by John Amorosi, Ron Cami, and Louis Goldberg, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, in Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Two weeks ago [on September 11, 2017], the Wall Street Journal reported on the intense interest in purchases of stakes in private equity managers. Presumably, this interest has been prompted, in part, by the consistent successes of private equity as an asset class over a sustained period of time, and the opportunity for market players to buy in to private equity firms at a time of relatively low market returns elsewhere. Further, with the inevitable likelihood of generational change in top management at many sponsors on the horizon, there are many reasons to believe that M&A activity involving private equity firms will continue at notable levels for the foreseeable future. [More…]
Harvey Weinstein shows sexual harassment is a big cost to businesses by Heidi N. Moore
These sudden reversals of fortune for predatory executives are not just moral reckonings. They are financial as well, for the the company, its board of directors and the thousands of other employees who work there: lost advertising revenue, mass firingsand instability, fleeing investors, broken deals, reputational damage, expensive lawsuits and in some cases even police investigations. Fox News lost 75% of its primetime hosts after Ailes resigned, and six of its eight top executives. (It has eventually stabilized, with Herculean effort.) The Weinstein Companies is throwing away its name in order to escape. [More…]
Compliance Jobs Report: Oct. 13 b
The Compliance Jobs Report starts with big news in the banking world: Wells Fargo has a new chief compliance officer, lured away from Barclays. Cognizant Technologies also has a new head of ethics and compliance, and we have other personnel moves at Deutsche Bank, Siemens, Société Générale, and more. Also, the head of audit at Walmart is now famous back at her high school. Read on… [More…]
