Michael Lewis continues his around the world tour of the 2008 financial crisis from the view of Germany: It’s the Economy, Dummkopf!. The story in the September issue of Vanity Fair seems to be all about excrement. We heard that there were big chunks of the mortgage securities business that were terrible. There is the … Read more »
When is Real Estate a Security?
Fee simple ownership of the “bricks and mortar” of real estate is not a securities transaction. “The offer of real estate as such, without any collateral arrangements with the seller or others, does not involve the offer of a security.” As you move further away from that model, you move closer and closer to the … Read more »
A Weekend of Whistleblowing
Friday marked the effective date of the SEC’s Whistlelower Rule. Lucky whistleblowers can now cash in with bounties of up to 30% of the government’s recovery when cases involve in excess of $1 million. The question I have is whether there was spike in tips submitted over the weekend? The SEC is trying to make … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for August 12
These are some compliance-related stories that recently caught my eye: United Breaks Guitars: Lesson Learned for Companies and Whistleblowers by Tom Fox The authors break their analysis down into two components, which I believe relate to the compliance context. The first is to understand what would drive an employee to go outside the internal reporting process? … Read more »
Remind People to Do the Right Thing
Dan Ariely continues to find small, easy ways to change behavior. This time it was his students running the experiment instead of him. Two students sent an email to everyone in the class that included a link to a website that was supposed to contain the answers to a past year’s final exam. In half … Read more »
Laundering the Proceeds of Corruption
The FCPA and the Bribery Act focus mostly on the giver of the bribe. On the other hand, the recipients of the bribes need to deal with the cash to also avoid being caught. Like all criminals, they either shove cash into their mattresses or find a way to launder the money to get it … Read more »
Compliance and Liar’s Poker
Michael Lewis has written some great stuff on our most recent financial crisis: The Big Short, Iceland’s Meltdown, Greece and Corruption, and Popping the Irish Bubble. This was not his first rodeo. Lewis had a brief career in finance working as a London-based bond salesman for Solomon Brothers during the mid eighties. His finance career … Read more »
Pillow Talk at Playboy Leads to Insider Trading
The headline was too hard to ignore. I suppose there must be some compliance lessons to be learned. But first, the facts: William A. Marovitz, who is married to former Playboy Enterprises Inc. Chief Executive Officer Christie Hefner, made $100,952 on the trades, according to an SEC complaint. The SEC alleges that on five occasions … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for August 5
Is it August already? The summer is flying by (as usual). There are still some interesting compliance-related stories floating by on the interwebz. Don’t know if you’re carrying on business in the UK, or not? What do you do? in The Bribery Act .com The key to its long arm jurisdiction rests in its application … Read more »
Report on Mutual Fund Advertising
Section 918 of Dodd-Frank Act required a study on mutual fund advertising. The Government Accountability Office delivered that report before the 18 month deadline to the designated Congressional committees. The Report’s objectives were “to examine (1) what is known about the impact of mutual fund advertisements on investors, (2) the extent to which performance information … Read more »