DC Dithers Over PCAOB, State AI Laws

pcaob

Time to revisit the policy-making nuttiness in Washington! Several measures relevant to compliance and audit professionals have gone through twists and turns lately as Republicans struggle to pass a budget bill that nobody likes, and we should ponder the potential implications for your compliance efforts back home. First (and somewhat to my surprise) Senate Republicans…

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The New FCPA Era Arrives

fcpa

Well, the Justice Department has published its much-anticipated guidelines for future enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — and honestly, they’re a bit anticlimactic. Nothing in the new policies should surprise anyone who’s been paying attention, and nothing in them should change your compliance program all that much. The policy changes came in two…

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Thoughts on the AI Job-Pocalypse 

AI

By now you may have seen one of numerous media reports recently that artificial intelligence is poised to decimate the white-collar job market in coming years. I’m not sure I agree with those dire reports, but clearly AI is going to transform how white-collar workers — such as compliance and audit professionals — arc through…

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When Trump Tells You to Eat It

trump

Here’s a conundrum of corporate governance for you: What should you do when the president of the United States starts hectoring your company to keep its prices low, even at the expense of profit margins?  This is not a hypothetical. It is yet another outburst from President Trump, who opened fire on Walmart this weekend…

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Talking Tariffs and Compliance

tariffs

Today we have another Radical Compliance podcast interview, this time talking about the compliance implications of the Trump Administration’s proposed tariffs regime — although the more you consider tariffs and President Trump’s erratic approach to them, the more you realize that their implications will spill far beyond the compliance function. To help me unpack all…

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Oh, Great: Trump Memecoin Risk

Trump

Another sign of our ethically challenged times in the Trump 2.0 era: a freight logistics company in Texas is planning to buy as much as $20 million’ worth of President Trump’s personal cryptocurrency, so the company can “advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.” Translation: the company, Freight Technologies Inc.,…

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Fines Cut for Ex-Wells Fargo Execs

wells fargo

U.S. banking regulators settled charges with two former top audit executives at Wells Fargo for their oversight failures during the bank’s fake accounts scandal of the 2010s, cutting the millions in fines the two men were facing by more than 90 percent. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced the deals late last…

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Boeing, Trade Wars, and Disclosures

boeing

Earlier this week we saw news that China has told local airlines there to stop taking delivery of Boeing airplanes, Beijing’s latest retaliatory move against President Trump’s tariffs. That gives us opportunity to consider the potential implications for financial reporting and risk disclosure — implications that might snare more companies as the trade war drags…

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FCPA Probe Into Digicel Closed

Digicel

The Justice Department has closed an FCPA investigation in a Caribbean telecommunications business, the second such closure since President Trump ordered a pause on all FCPA enforcement two months ago. The company in question is Digicel, headquartered in Jamaica and offering a range of mobile phone and internet services across the Caribbean. Digicel had first…

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DOJ Monitorship Policy Disappears

The Justice Department has pulled down its policy statement on when compliance monitors will be assigned as part of corporate misconduct resolutions, which seems as good a reason as any to catch up on all the news swirling around compliance monitorships these days. The Justice Department had previously posted its policy on monitorships on the…

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