Tag: Francine McKenna

Winding Down From Compliance Week

My head is full of compliance goodness after spending 2.5 days at Compliance Week 2010. The Mayflower Hotel is a great place for a conference this size, with plenty of places to run into people.

Substance

The agenda was full of great substantive information from fellow compliance professionals. There were sessions on metrics, social media, corporate governance, ROI, organizational structures and communications. There were lots of closed door sessions that have not made their way into the blog, where compliance professionals could have more open discussions without the presence of media or vendors.

On top of that, we heard some great perspectives from top government officials, like Lanny Breur, Gary Grindler, Shelley Parratt, Barney Frank and Luis Aguilar.

Of course the best part of any conference is being able to interact with your peers. This was a great gathering of people in the compliance field.

Matt Kelly, Francine McKenna and Me

Old Friends

For me, it was great to once again spend time face-to face with old friends like Scott Cohen, Matt Kelly, Bruce Carton, Francine McKenna, Melissa Klein Aguilar, Bill Piwonka, Carole Switzer, Kathleen Edmond, and Scott Giordano.

New Friends

One of the great things about have a blog, or micro-blogging on Twitter is being able to get in touch with people prior to meeting them in person and then staying in touch with them.

Here are some of the Twitterati I was finally able to meet face-to-face:

tfoxlaw Tom Fox
@tfoxlaw
http://tfoxlaw.com
David Seide
@davidSeide
Scott Mitchell
@mitchell360
Doug Jacobson
@tradelawnews
Doug Chia
@dougchia

Of course, I met more people who don’t blog or use Twitter. It’s just harder to keep those weak ties.

Behind the Scenes

Gina Imperato, Elizabeth Busch, Anne Frey-Mott, Beckie Jankiewicz and the rest of the Event Studio team did a great job of running the conference, getting the attendees where they need to go and making the speakers look good.

Next year

…..

Questions and Answers with Robert Khuzami

After the news conference announcing the Rearrangement of its Enforcement Program, the Securities and Exchange Commission offered a group of bloggers the chance to ask questions to Robert Khuzami, the Director of Enforcement. (It must have felt like Obi-Wan stepping into the cantina full of low-life scoundrels.)

The blogging participants:

Mr. Khuzami let us know that the specialized units and cooperation initiatives came out of the self-assessment they conducted last year. Now that the heads of the new units have been made, those heads will start filling out their ranks.

Bruce started off questions by asking for more information on the new Office of Market Intelligence. This unit is combining two existing units, Market Surveillance and Internet Enforcement. It sounds like this will be a big source of information flow for the SEC with lots of complaints and charges coming in one place, getting filtered and sent to the right people for the appropriate action.

I asked about the creation of the new specialized units which are great for expertise, but may push information into silos. Mr. Khuzami pointed out that one of the current problems is that information is currently too diffuse across the SEC. There is a going to be hybrid approach. Not everything is going to end up in these units. He thinks expertise is very important. These units are going to be national in scope, so the people will spread out across the regional offices.

Laura Richman wanted to know if the SEC Commissioners are going to be comfortable with the new cooperation protocols. The enforcement division can only make a recommendation. It’s up to the Commission to decide whether to prosecute or settle. (This is unlikely to give the warm fuzzies to someone who is thinking about acting as a whistleblower or a company cooperating with an issue.)

Todd Sullivan was surprised that the cooperation initiatives were not already available to the SEC. Mr. Khuzami pointed out that criminal prosecutions have used cooperation strategies for a long time. It’s a new concept to civil proceedings.

Cate wanted to know if the SEC could develop the experience or tools to differentiate between proprietary trading versus market making. The SEC wants better information.

Francine wanted to know if the SEC will step up its enforcement actions against the accounting firms. Timeliness is key. If there is a long time between the misconduct and the prosecution, then there is a lost opportunity to stop others by setting an example.

Mr. Khuzami pointed out the SEC has been through a tough year but his group wants to use their professional skills and do good work. He thinks the Division is coming together and moving forward in a positive direction.

I want to thank Mark Story, the SEC’s Director of New Media, for inviting me to the press conference and Rob (I think I can call him that now) for taking the time to talk with us.

SEC News Conference on its Enforcement Program

Bruce Carton of Securities Docket, Francine McKenna of Re: The Auditors and I are attending the SEC’s news conference virtually and taking notes using the CoverItLive tool embedded below.

How Are the Fortune 100 Using Web 2.0 for Investor Relations?

retheauditors

Francine McKenna, of re: The Auditors, put together a great study on how the Fortune 100 are using Web 2.0 for investor relations. There are some. But for the most part, they are not using web 2.0.

The Downside:

  • Only 3 use blogs
  • Only 2 use Facebook
  • Only 2 use Twitter. (Although 4 others do, they just left that information from the IR page.)

The Upside:

  • 49 use RSS feeds

Corresponding with Cornelius

one_financial_center_boston

Here are some of my recent comments on some other blogs or other websites that allow comments.

I am happy to have you leave comments at Compliance Building. But if not here, take a look at what other people are saying. Join me in the conversation over there.

What Would You Do?? by Heather Milligan of The Legal Watercooler

Heather comments on the $80,000 paid vacation offered by Skadden posting, if I were a Skadden associate, I would take this opportunity to explore my passions. Perhaps law is it … but maybe not. Why not take this time to figure it out while you are young and relatively unencumbered? I commented that law schools should seize the opportunity and offer some specialty programs to provide some additional specialized education to these lawyers with time on their hands.

Obama Knows Where the Wild Things Are

Over on  my personal website, I found a video of President Obama reading Where the Wild Things Are.

Personal, Private, Professional, Public by Mike McBride of The Many Faces of Mike

Chatting about my 4Ps of publishing to the internet

What I’d Do: Part 2 – First We Focus On The Client by Francine McKenna of re: The Auditors

Francine has a great discussion about the divided loyalties of auditors and the effects of the recent reductions in their workforce.

Catch the Wave: Client Data is Becoming Cloud-Bound by Gary Levine on Capitalization Matters

Gary looks at some of the ways law firm client information is moving into the cloud, including my post on extranets.

Image is by Solarapex published on Wikimedia Commons and made available through a Creative Commons license: One Financial Center (Boston)

The 2008 Year in Review from Securities Docket

This panel joined Securities Docket’s Bruce Carton to look back at the most important and interesting developments in 2008, and offer their predictions for 2009.

Kevin started off noting that the number of securities class action lawsuits in 2008 is a 33% increase over last year and the highest since 2004. He sees the increase as a result of the credit crisis, starting with the sub-prime loan programs and them spreading.

Kevin predicted that 2009 will see even more securities class action lawsuits.

Tom focused on SEC enforcement actions. He started with the Siemens FCPA case. He then mentioned the Faro Technologies case involving payments in China (Admin File No. 3-13059, June 5, 2008). Last he mentioned the UnitedHealth Group option back-dating case. Of course the big case is the Madoff scandal.

Tom expects to see a big re-shaping of the SEC and its enforcement division.

Francine looked at auditor litigation. Either the public accountants fell down while acting as the watchdogs against fraud on the public or that it is that they were also duped by management. The Big 4 has escaped sub-prime exposure so far but will likely get hit in Madoff. She sees BDO Seidman as having significant exposure from the Banco Espiritu Santo judgment. All of the Big 4 are subject to wage/overtime suits. Deloitte has sued their former vice chairman for insider trading.

Francine predicts that a Big 4 firm will take a significant hit for failing to make a “going concern” opinion prior to a big failure.

Walter sees the federal government’s bailout amplifying the effect of the financial markets meltdown. This was not just a Wall Street problem; it is now a taxpayer problem. Walter also expects to see more criminal prosecutions against individuals. He points out that the cutting edge risk methods blew up. CDSs and CDOs caused explosive damage. Also low-tech methods failed. The personal relationships of Madoff still failed investors. peopel are looking for lessons as to whether more regulations would have prevented the financial meltdown.

Walter predicts another AAA rated firm will have its executives indicted or be revealed as insolvent.

Bruce sees the Madoff case as the biggest development in 2008. He also sees the SEC getting worked over by Congress. The SEC admitted that they ignored credible evidence about Madoff.

Bruce predicts 90% of big law firms will begin to use Twitter for public relations.

A public vote found that Tom’s prediction was most likely to happen (41%) with Kevin following close behind (40%).