Here are some compliance stories from the past week that I found interesting: Shadowing a Swindler by Richard Tofel His review of the Harry Markopolos book: No One Would Listen [N]early all the whistleblowers she had met shared two qualities. First, they were onto something—that is, there was at least some truth to what they … Read more »
Upcoming Appearances and Conferences
For those of you stalking me or trying to find out when my house is empty, here are some places I will be this spring: Mark Fryenburg asked back to his speak to his class: CS 299 Web 2.0: Technology, Strategy, Community. I’m going to tackle personal knowledge management. After all, that is the reason … Read more »
Consumer Complaints and Fraud
I occasionally like to look at consumer fraud complaints to see if I can learn any lessons for corporate compliance.On the consumer side there is tremendous volume of complaints and many parties trying to help. It caught my eye when four different organizations got together to identify the top consumer complaints for 2009. Here are … Read more »
The Problem with Selective Disclosure
If you want to see a classic case of the problems with selective disclosure take a look at the recent SEC case against Presstek, Inc. and its former CFO. Presstek was having a bad quarter in 2006. The CFO knew that the company would be reporting bad financial performance for the quarter. The CFO told … Read more »
New Codes of Conduct for Real Estate Companies
It’s always useful to look at what your competition is doing. The same is true in drafting your code of conduct (or code of ethics or whatever name you chose). It is useful to look at you what your competitors’ codes of conduct look like. Since Sarbanes-Oxley requires a public company to have a code … Read more »
New Anti-Money Laundering Guidance
Money Laundering is bad and financial institutions need to have internal controls policies, procedures and processes to identify higher-risk accounts and monitor the activity. At the core of an anti-money laundering program is that an institution must know its customers and the risks presented by its customers. The program becomes more difficult when the customer … Read more »
National Consumer Protection Week
National Consumer Protection Week 2010 is March 7-13. Take advantage of the FTC’s free resources, which can help you protect your privacy, manage money and debt, avoid identity theft, understand credit and mortgages, and steer clear of frauds and scams. This year’s theme is Dollars & Sense: Rated “A” for All Ages. The idea is … Read more »
Weekend Book Review: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Books about compliance, business ethics, law and financial markets can be well written, interesting and thought-provoking. But they’re not fun. So I decided I needed change and found a whimsically absurd novel that touches upon compliance: Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde. Chromatacia is a world where people have limited ability to see color and … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for March 5
Here are some compliance related stories from the past week: Setting Off Alarm Bells at Work by Steven D. Levitt on Freakonomics Apparently, the use of such internet sites [Facebook] is not tolerated by CPS and rather than block those websites altogether, accessing them causes this ear-piercing noise to go off that sounds something like … Read more »
Wikis, Learning, Teaching and Compliance
I am a believer that the use of 2.0 tools can help compliance professionals. (Hopefully, this blog is a part of that proof.) Moving to the inherently open communication of 2.0 tools from the inherently private channel communication of email can expose sunlight on behavior and expose information. Incorrect information and behavior can be corrected. … Read more »