Posts by Matt Kelly
WPP Pays $19M on FCPA: An Analysis
Advertising giant WPP has agreed to pay $19 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had poor internal accounting controls in the 2010s, which led to bribery through third parties in India and several other emerging markets. The SEC announced the settlement on Friday. It consisted of $11 million in…
Read MoreCompliance Jobs Report: Sept. 24
The Compliance Jobs Report this week has new hires at Activision Blizzard, Cooper Standard, BetMGM, and Beam Suntory, among others. We also have a few promotions to report, compliance officers joining the SCCE board, job leads in social media and women’s underwear — and our Meme of the Week goes out to in-person conferences! As…
Read MoreDispatches from SCCE 2021
Well, it happened: the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics has hosted its first in-person conference in two years, with more than 600 people schmoozing, learning, and awkwardly leaning in for hugs at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas. Hundreds more compliance professionals watched the SCCE conference virtually from the comfort of their own homes,…
Read MoreESG and Supply Chain Transparency
A report released this week demonstrates the challenges ahead as large companies try to stand up ESG programs that include their often vast supply chains, since many small suppliers are still struggling to stand up their own ESG efforts that you larger players can rely upon. The report comes from ISN, which acts as a…
Read MoreGrappling With Artificial Intelligence
Later this week I’ll have the privilege to moderate a panel discussion on artificial intelligence at the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics’ 2021 conference — and as fate would have it, COSO published guidance last week on the risk management challenges around AI. So let’s dig into the subject, since clearly the universe is…
Read MoreCompliance Jobs Report: Sept. 17
We have quite the international Compliance Jobs Report this week, with updates from Canada, Colombia, Dubai, Serbia, and elsewhere. Also new hires here in the United States at Wells Fargo, Meggitt, and more. Some cutting-edge tech companies are looking for chief compliance officers, and our Meme of the Week goes out to the Matrix. As…
Read MorePoll: 46% Would Report Lax Vax Policies
A new poll of more than 5,000 white-collar employees finds that nearly half of them would report their employer to OSHA if the company weren’t enforcing mandatory vaccination and testing policies — and a large majority support the Biden Administration’s push for mandatory vaccination, regardless of whether they’d report their errant employers. So says Blind,…
Read MoreNLRB Beefs Up Penalties Pressure
The National Labor Relations Board is pushing to seek more expansive remedies for employees found to be victim of unfair labor practices — just in case you didn’t have enough regulatory enforcement pressures to worry about. The policy shift was announced by NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo in a memo published Wednesday. She encouraged the…
Read MoreAnother KPMG Cheating Scandal!
A bit of embarrassing news for KPMG from Down Under: the PCAOB has fined the firm’s Australia affiliate $450,000 for a cheating scandal among more than 1,100 employees there, two years after regulators sanctioned KPMG’s U.S. offices for essentially the same offense. From at least 2016 until early 2020, according to the PCAOB’s settlement order,…
Read MoreUpdate on Jailed Compliance Officer
We have an update on Samuel Bickett, the corporate compliance officer jailed in Hong Kong on trumped-up charges that he assaulted a police officer. He is currently appealing his 18-week prison sentence, and spending the rest of his time helping other inmates he met during an early stint in Hong Kong’s maximum-security prison. Bickett, you…
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