Today, the House passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173 ), a week after it was introduced. It looks it is a mashup of other bills that were being tossed around in the House to regulate the financial industry. According to Carl Husle of the New York Times, “After … Read more »
Compliance Bits and Pieces for December 11
Here are some interesting stories from the past week. Tis the Season! Where are the gifts from vendors?? from Kathleen Edmond, Best Buy’s Chief Ethics Officer This time every year we send out reminders to our employees that we do not accept gifts from vendors. At the same time we send letters to our vendors … Read more »
Carried Interest Tax Legislation Suddenly Appears and Moves Forward
Tucked into the Tax Extenders Act of 2009 (H.R. 4213), is a provision targeted at partnership interests held by partners providing services. This proposal seems to be the same proposal offered by Congressman Sandy Levin from the 12th District of Michigan in H.R. 1935 which has been sitting in Committee [See prior post: Carried Interest … Read more »
Data Accountability and Trust Act Passed by House
The Data Accountability and Trust Act (H.R. 2221) was passed by the House on Tuesday. This act would requires the Federal Trade Commission to promulgate regulations requiring each person engaged in interstate commerce that owns or possesses electronic data containing personal information to establish security policies and procedures. This bill would preempt any state laws in … Read more »
SEC Goes After Sub-Prime Lender
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three former top officers of New Century Financial Corporation with securities fraud for misleading investors as New Century’s subprime mortgage business was collapsing in 2006. At the time of the fraud, New Century was one of the largest subprime lenders in the nation. In its complaint, the SEC alleges … Read more »
International Anti-Corruption Day
The theme of this year’s observance of the International Anti-Corruption Day is “Don’t let corruption kill development.” “When public money is stolen for private gain, it means fewer resources to build schools, hospitals, roads and water treatment facilities. When foreign aid is diverted into private bank accounts, major infrastructure projects come to a halt. Corruption … Read more »
Positioning yourself for Tomorrow’s Social Media Today: Practical Approaches for Legal Professionals
Join Compliance Building’s Doug Cornelius for a 60-minute Webinar at 11:00 am Eastern time on Wednesday, December 9. It’s free, sponsored by Martindale-Hubbell Connected. The webinar will give you examples of social media web-based tools helping legal professionals become more efficient and productive. Will we soon say goodbye to email? Panel The webinar panel includes: … Read more »
Tuesday Morning Quarterback of Free Enterprise v. PCAOB
On Monday, the Supreme Court listened to the oral arguments in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (08-861). For me in the compliance world, the case is about the viability of PCAOB under Sarbanes-Oxley. For the constitutional scholars it is an important separation of powers case. Responding to concerns about accounting that … Read more »
Global Ethics Summit
Dow Jones and Ethisphere Institute are teaming up to present the 2010 Global Ethics Summit on February 23-24, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt New York City. I just confirmed that I will be attending, thanks to an offer from the event’s organizers. “In an effort to help companies deal with anti-corruption compliance and other significant … Read more »
An Effective Workplace Investigation
The California Supreme Court in Cotran v. Rollins Hudig Hall International, Inc. found that for an employer to have “good cause” to terminate an employee, the employer does not have to prove that allegations of misconduct are true, just that the employer fairly formed a reasonable belief that they were true. So an employer must … Read more »