Posts Tagged ‘cco liability’
Feds: SEC Staffer Stole Data to Land CCO Role
Oh good lord: Federal prosecutors have indicted a former SEC enforcement attorney with stealing information from the agency while he worked there — so he could set himself up as chief compliance officer of a private equity firm under SEC investigation. Michael Cohn, chief compliance officer of GPB Capital Holdings, was charged in federal court…
Read MoreNJ Transit ex-CCO Files Whistleblower Case
The former chief compliance officer at New Jersey Transit filed a federal whistleblower complaint against the agency last week, the latest twist in a drama that has irritated New Jersey commuters for months. The ex-compliance officer, Todd Barretta, filed his complaint with OSHA on Jan. 10, claiming whistleblower status under the Federal Rail Safety Act.…
Read MoreAt What Cost Dishonesty? For VW Exec, Seven Years
Last week a federal judge in Michigan sentenced Volkswagen’s former head of environmental compliance in the United States, Oliver Schmidt, to seven years in prison for his role in VW’s emissions cheating scandal. That’s a tough sentence for a compliance officer. And Schmidt deserved every day of it. As far as the compliance community should…
Read MoreCompliance Officer Liability: Three Tales
Good lord, compliance community, what happened to us last week? After years as a relatively calm, staid profession, we had three reports of compliance officers accused of misconduct. All are head-scratchers that require more detail, and I suspect we’ll be following them in the future. The coincidental timing of them, however, is nothing short of…
Read MoreAck! CCO Liability Is Back Again!
Loyal readers of Radical Compliance know that I don’t give much credit to fears of CCO liability for compliance failures. Outside the financial services sector, the risks to a compliance officer are virtually zero, unless you’re grossly negligent or complicit in the misconduct. Within the financial services world, compliance officers do have more worry—and then…
Read MoreEnough About CCO Liability!
Compliance officers should welcome the arrest several days ago of Volkswagen’s head of U.S. regulatory compliance—because, at long last, that action seems to be snapping us out of our misplaced fears of compliance officer liability. The compliance executive in question is Oliver Schmidt, who headed VW’s emissions compliance office here in the United States from…
Read MoreCan We Calm Down Over CCO Liability?
Thank the lord! Yesterday the SEC fined an investment advisory firm and one of its senior managers for failure to prevent insider trading—and did not fault the firm’s chief compliance officer. Now maybe we can all, finally, step back from the fears over CCO liability that have gripped this profession too much. The firm in question…
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