Posts by Matt Kelly
Lessons in Fraud From Atlanta Hawks
Today, another compliance lesson from the world of sports! Federal prosecutors have indicted the now-former head of finance of the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team, on charges that he embezzled millions from the team over at least eight years to buy sports cars, concert tickets, luxury vacations, and all the usual goodies we see in…
Read MoreFINRA Fines Firm $10M on Gift Spending
We have a great case study this week for compliance and internal control folks worried about lavish spending on gifts and entertainment: FINRA just fined a financial services firm $10 million for providing clients luxury meals and event tickets in exchange for business deals, and for a weak recordkeeping system that allowed employees to cover…
Read MoreCompliance and Incentives, Part II
Today I want to return to the idea of effective incentives for corporate compliance. In a post on the subject last week, we explored some fundamentals of how to build an incentives program, but struggled with exactly how to tie executive compensation to compliance criteria. So for help, I turned to that fount of all…
Read MoreCompliance Jobs Report: Oct. 31
This week the Compliance Jobs Report begins with a grim update from Fannie Mae. We also have personnel news from Hewlett Packard, AMD, Booking.com, UBS, Foundation Medicine, Capital One, Cisco Systems, and lots more. A great friend of the compliance profession is also moving on; and job leads are in social services, market research, and…
Read MoreSEC Chair Talks Messaging Enforcement, Misses Point
The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said this week that the agency’s Biden-era crackdown on improper use of off-channel messaging apps was “not the way a regulator should act” and presumably won’t happen again under his watch. That’s probably music to compliance officers’ ears, but tread carefully — his words raise other, unsettling…
Read MoreFacebook Cuts 100+ in Privacy, Risk Teams
Facebook (OK, OK, the company formally known as Meta) is reportedly laying off more than 100 people from its privacy and risk management teams, telling employees that improvements in automation technology and global technical controls means that “we don’t need as many roles.” The cutbacks are a useful glimpse into the evolving state of compliance,…
Read MoreGetting Started on Compliance Incentives
Last week I had the privilege of moderating a webinar on how to structure and use incentives in an ethics and compliance program. This is good, because incentives are one of those ideas that we all know should be in your program somehow, but using them smartly and at scale is tricky. My notes are…
Read MoreCompliance Jobs Report: Oct. 24
This week the Compliance Jobs Report has hiring news at Amazon, Philip Morris, Harman International, ICE (no, not that one), Emirates, and more. Indivior has had a changing of the compliance guard, plus other promotions at Bristol Myers Squibb, Comcast, Kohler, Rio Tinto, and elsewhere. Job leads are in medical devices, sporting goods, and cable…
Read MoreGood Guidance on Third-Party Cyber Risk
Good news if you’re still smarting from that Amazon Web Services failure earlier this week that paralyzed large swaths of the business world! Regulators in New York just released fresh guidance about how to manage the cybersecurity risks of third-party technology providers. Apparently we all need a refresher course, so let’s take a look. The…
Read MoreThe Troubling Smartmatic FCPA Indictment
Last week the Justice Department indicted Smartmatic, a voting technology company, for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. For compliance professionals it’s a bizarre moment: after 10 months of the Trump Administration telling us it would limit FCPA enforcement severely, the department turned around and took one of the most forceful actions it can against…
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