You can listen to a webinar from the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics Fall Symposium – Corporate Compliance: The Role of Company Counsel from October, 2007. Introductory Remarks Mitt Regan, Professor, Georgetown Law Center Frederic J. Krebs, President, Association of Corporate Counsel Panel I – Conflicting Duties: Lessons from the KPMG Prosecution Michael Frisch, Professor … Read more »
Kickbacks at Fry’s Electronics
Ausaf Umar Siddiqui was arrested on federal charges of money laundering and wire fraud. He allegedly charged vendors commissions in exchange for agreeing to buy merchandise at inflated prices. According to the news stories, he siphoned off as much as $65 million and used the money for Las Vegas gambling. Read more »
Fannie Mae Code of Ethics
Fannie Mae has their Code of Conduct posted on their website. So? The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has imposed a revised code of conduct aimed at preventing mortgage brokers and lenders from pressuring appraisers to inflate their estimates of home values. Now there is a revised Home Valuation Code … Read more »
Toward an Ethical Culture: Characteristics of an Ethical Organization
Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, asked at a recent meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership: “What are the signs that a company is getting it right and addressing the most important dimensions of managing ethics in an organization?” Anne Federwisch put together a summary of the … Read more »
The Ethics of Citicorp Center
I am not writing about the financial bail-out. I am focusing on a real estate construction story that happened back in 1978 when Citicorp Center was built On Lexington Avenue in New York City. A portion of the building was constructed on air rights to accommodate a building on one corner of the property. The … Read more »
What New Regulations Will Come From The Madoff Scandal?
Bob Ivry, Saijel Kishan and Ian Katz look into their crystal ball at Bloomberg: Hedge Funds Concede Oversight Inevitability in Wake of Madoff. Narrowing the exemptions from registration under the Investment Advisers Act? More whisteblower protection? Segregation of the investment advisory and custody roles? More disclosure requirements? Minimum capital standards? Borrowing ratio limitations? Read more »
Real Estate Development and Corruption
Wicked Local Newton is reporting that the Maynard, Massachusetts superintendent of public works was arrested for soliciting cash payments from a private developer in exchange for relaxing permitting and inspection requirements: Maynard public works chief, a Newton resident, charged with accepting bribes. Paul Camilli, 38, of Newton, let an unnamed developer know that he would … Read more »
Does Your D&O Policy Cover Criminal Investigations?
Kevin M. LaCroix of The D&O Diary weighs in on coverage of criminal investigations: D&O Insurance: Corporate Criminal Investigations. He references a December 2008 article by Patricia Bronte of Jenner & Block entitled D&O Coverage for Corporate Criminal Investigations (.pdf). The main issue is how your policy defines “criminal conduct.” Some policies defines it with … Read more »
Hedging Risk In Real Estate
Neal Elkin of PIonline.com writes in A Better Way To Hedge Risk In Real Estate: “What if institutional investors, while increasing their allocations to both residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, had been able to hedge their exposure to the underlying collateral?” The author looks at some of real estate based indexes tracking U.S. property prices … Read more »
Insider Trading and Family Betrayal
Bruce Carton put together a collection of insider trading enforcement actions involving family betrayal: The Five Levels of Familial Betrayal, SEC Edition. Read more »