Was it Fannie Mae? Was it the lack of regulatory oversight? Was it the rating agencies? Was it pure greed? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Plus, there were lots of other factors. Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera put together an insightful look at the many factors that created the housing bubble and amplified the destruction … Read more »
Attacking Wall Street in 1920
I don’t often include fiction books in my book reviews on this site. But I was drawn to The Death Instinct because its historic fiction is centered around an event on Wall Street. So I thought the book would be interesting for a compliance professional. A horse-drawn wagon passed through Wall Street’s lunchtime crowds on … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for January 21
Here are some recent compliance-related stories that recently caught my eye: The Swiss Compliance House: a Model for FCPA Compliance? by Thomas Fox The Compliance House is a model which has been developed by Swiss businesses to use as the foundation of effective compliance management by ensuring that by “binding values and appropriate compliance management … Read more »
The Role of Compliance in Criminal Cases
Plan Now or Pay Later. Compliance failures are expensive. Failures result in big fines, expensive investigative costs and expensive legal fees. Plus you end up diverting valuable management resources from managing the business to managing the damage. Executives would much rather be sitting in the boardroom than in a deposition. Compliance has become a key … Read more »
Pay to Play Rules for Placement Agents
The SEC imposed strict limitations on the ability of investment advisers to make political contributions when their clients include government bodies when it issued Rule 206(4)-5. They don’t want government investment decisions decided campaign contributions. This limitation also applies to private investment funds under the language of the rule and the changes to the Investment … Read more »
Sovereign Wealth Funds, Bribery, Corruption, Hospitality and the FCPA
The FCPA seems to be most closely associated with shady oil operations, mining, defense contractors and infrastructure transactions. The image is a big company coming in and bribing an official for access to the country’s resources. The other side to that investment is that the countries build up big supplies of capital. Many deploy some … Read more »
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Compliance Bits and Pieces for January 14
Here are some recent compliance related stories that caught my attention: “Foreign Official” Limbo … How Low Can It Go? in FCPA Professor Move over 49%, there is a new “foreign official” “limbo low” – 43%. In the recent Alcatel-Lucent enforcement action (see here for a complete analysis) paragraph 21 of the DOJ’s information (here) … Read more »
The Impact of the UK Bribery Act on U.S. Companies
Securities Docket put on another fantastic webcast on topics relevant to compliance professionals. Today’s focused on the upcoming Bribery Act in the United Kingdom. If your company has operations in the United Kingdom, you need to pay attention to this law. The upcoming law applies to individuals and companies and outlaws bribes to public officials … Read more »
Stay on Target
Don’t stray from your investment strategy. Don’t chase yields. Make sure your investment strategy follows your marketing materials. According to SEC charges, Charles Schwab failed to do this with its YieldPlus Fund in 2007. The fund was marketed as a Short Term Bond fund and described the Fund as a cash “alternative” that generated a … Read more »