Lawrence D. Finder, Ryan D. McConnell & Scott L. Mitchell drafted a paper surveying the sixteen corporate deferred prosecutions and non-prosecution agreements entered into by the Department of Justice in 2008. Betting the Corporation: Compliance or Defiance? Compliance Programs in the Context of Deferred and Non-Prosecution Agreements – Corporate Pre-Trial Agreement Update – 2008 In … Read more »
Let’s Get Ethical!, Ethical!, I Want To Get Ethical…
Those of you that watch NBC’s “The Office” see some of the best examples of what NOT to do in business every week. They also tackled what not NOT to do in an Ethics Training course. The clip shows some of the worst training skills (reading from the binder, HR-speak, etc.). It also provides an … Read more »
Twitter and Presentations
At President Obama’s State of the Union address, there was a fair amount coverage by the media and by the Congressman in attendance. Several dozen Congressmen have twitter accounts and many were sending out messages during the address. Is this Good or Bad? What about people in the audience when you are giving your next … Read more »
Waiving the Attorney-Client Privilege By Seeking Tax Advice
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court focused on the issue of whether the attorney-client privilege protected communications between an in-house corporate counsel and outside tax accountants. Commissioner of Revenue v. Comcast Corporation, et al., SJC-10209 (March 3, 2009). The general rule is that the voluntary disclosure of privileged information to a third party consultant for the … Read more »
Madoff Goes From His Penthouse to the Big House
Bernie Madoff filed past a sea of reporters and camera flashes to enter his guilty plea in front of Judge Denny Chin. Several victims spoke, asking the judge to reject the plea and force a trial. They want grueling trial to make Madoff suffer and to bring more facts out to the public. Since he … Read more »
Seven Questions to Ask to Optimize Your Compliance Programs
Compliance Week put on a webinar covering Practical Guidance: Seven Questions to Ask to Optimize Your Compliance Programs. Bruce McCuaig, Vice President, Risk and Compliance and Mike Rost, Vice President, Marketing of Paisley presented. Mike started off with some background of Paisley, then moved onto the “Why?” of Compliance. Companies want to avoid the downside … Read more »
Conducting C-Suite Investigations
EthicsPoint presented a webinar on conducting C-Suite Investigations, with Sally Rhys, BA, MS, CCEP of Business Ethics Focus. No-one wants to believe that allegations against the C-suite (Senior Executives) could be true. But with daily news reports of more cases of illegal and unethical transgressions by senior leaders, we all know that every organization is … Read more »
Investor Relations 2.0
eBay took a bold move yesterday, using Web 2.0 tools for investor relations. During its first analysts’ meeting in three years, eBay management had a live twitter stream with live coverage of the meeting and bloggers with just less than live coverage of the meeting. The securities industry seems to be struggling with Web 2.0 … Read more »
Connecticut Hedge Fund Regulation
The folks over at the Hedge Fund Compliance Blog point out that the Connecticut legislature has three bills pending that would regulate the hedge fund industry in that state. It seems strange that a state with such a big hedge fund industry would make their businesses more difficult. But these are strange economic times. It … Read more »
The Subprime Boomerang: After the Writedowns Comes the Litigation
Securities Docket put on a great webinar on The Subprime Boomerang: After the Writedowns Comes the Litigation. Bruce Carton moderated a panel of Veronica Rendon of Arnold & Porter, Richard Swanson of Arnold & Porter and Jeff Nielsen of Navigant Consulting, Inc. Jeff started off my showing how much complicated the picture is for securitized … Read more »