News
PCAOB Board to Be Sacked
SEC chairman Paul Atkins is moving to replace the entire board of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, one week after Atkins muscled out PCAOB chairman Erica Williams years before her term was due to expire. Atkins disclosed his plans in a statement quietly issued Wednesday night, calling for candidates for all five PCOAB board…
Read MoreIs ‘Earnings Before Tariffs’ a Thing?
Don’t look now, but Corporate America started filing second-quarter earnings releases in large numbers this week, with many of them mentioning Trump Administration tariffs in some form or another. That raises an intriguing question for all you external reporting and corporate disclosure buffs: Can tariffs somehow be reported as an adjustment to earnings? This has…
Read MoreA Question on SOX Compliance Costs
Brace yourselves, SOX compliance professionals! A new government report finds that Sarbanes-Oxley compliance costs are generally higher for large public companies, but more onerous for smaller ones — confirming what everyone in the field has already known for, like, the last 20 years. The report was released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last Friday.…
Read MoreCompliance Jobs Report: July 18
This week we have new compliance hires at Cushman & Wakefield, Galderma, American Express, Deutsche Bank, Las Vegas Sands, and more; also promotions at Family Dollar, WeWork, Heineken, Rolls-Royce, and elsewhere. Job leads are in consulting, conservation, and plaid products; plus our Meme of the Week! We also take any other gossip you might have,…
Read MoreCOSO Yanks Draft Governance Framework
COSO has withdrawn its proposed corporate governance framework barely six weeks after unveiling it, saying that a “shifting regulatory and economic landscape for U.S. businesses” plus recent passage of Republicans’ tax-and-spending bill warrants going back to the drawing board for a fresh start. COSO announced the withdrawal of the draft framework on Wednesday, in a…
Read MoreTwo Telling Moves From SEC
The image of the Trump 2.0 Administration is starting to emerge at the Securities and Exchange Commission! On Tuesday the agency both muscled out the head of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and dropped FCPA charges against two former executives of Cognizant Technologies — acts that, taken together, send a clear signal of where…
Read MoreLessons in Harman Sanctions Case
We haven’t talked sanctions enforcement lately but now have reason to do so, thanks to an enforcement action last week against a global electronics company that hinged on a weak compliance program and poor oversight of international distributors. Said company is Harman International, headquartered in Connecticut and a subsidiary of Samsung since 2017. Harman agreed…
Read MoreCompliance Jobs Report: July 11
Another big Compliance Jobs Report! American Express has hired a new CCO for its U.K. operations; the CCO at Colgate is leaving for another employer; and we have other news from Apex Group, Takeda, Cushman & Wakefield, Schneider Electric, and many more. Job leads are in life insurance, motorcycle financing, and toys; and don’t forget…
Read MoreAntitrust Whistleblower Program Launched
Another week, another whistleblower rewards program announced by the U.S. federal government. This time it’s the Antitrust Division at the Justice Department, which just launched its first-ever rewards program to dig up allegations of procurement fraud, price fixing, market allocation, and similar misconduct. The Division announced the rewards program on Tuesday in conjunction with the…
Read MoreNew Healthcare Fraud Crackdown
Some red meat for all you compliance officers in the healthcare sector: the Trump Administration plans to increase its enforcement of the False Claims Act, courtesy of a new and improved task force run by the Justice Department and the Department of Health & Human Services. The two departments announced the task force on July…
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