Internal control enthusiasts everywhere are performing a root cause analysis of what went wrong at the Oscars this weekend, so Radical Compliance might as well get a piece of that action too. After all, when was the last time a control failure was household news? The debacle, for those last few who haven’t yet heard…
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Acting SEC Chairman Michael Piwowar gave a speech Friday that hit all the major themes compliance offices should expect from the SEC under the Trump Administration: a push for simplified disclosure, fewer corporate penalties, and easier standards for raising capital. Although, in one surprise twist, Piwowar did say he supports corporate penalties for violations of…
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This week’s compliance jobs report has a few bits of news about planning for regulatory reform: who on Team Trump might help plan it, and how the banking world is staffing up to respond to it. GRC software vendors were also busy this week, and Viacom is hiring for possibly the most interesting compliance job…
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We’re going to argue a lot in coming months about whether to exempt many more companies from compliance with Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Personally, I’m torn between those people who believe 404(b) compliance is crucial to good governance; and those who say expanding the exemption will allow more companies to go public. I…
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The auditing industry’s chief regulator has unveiled a database to let people find out which audit firm partners work on what client engagements. Audit firms don’t relish the idea, but anyone eager for more transparency into the auditing business now has it. The database, aptly named AuditorSearch, was launched by the Public Company Accounting Oversight…
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Yesterday I did another “Compliance in the Weeds” podcast with Tom Fox, where our subject of conversation were the Justice Department’s new guidelines for evaluating corporate compliance programs. That guidance—46 questions that prosecutors might ask about your compliance program, across 11 broad categories—is manna from heaven for corporate compliance officers. The questions are specific. They…
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Hallelujah! We have fresh guidance from the Justice Department about an effective FCPA compliance program, and a speech from a new official there who says enforcement will continue! And we all thought the Trump Administration could get nothing done. The guidance is an 11-part checklist apparently added to the Fraud Section’s website sometime last week.…
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This week’s compliance jobs report includes a new chief compliance officer for Toyota’s North America operations, and a new head of legal policy at GE. The Atlanta transit system just lost its chief audit executive, and former SEC chair Mary Jo White went through the revolving door back to her old law firm. All that…
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When we last left disclosure of “Trump risk” just after the November 8 presidential election, only a few brave filers mentioned the victory of Donald Trump in their risk factors. Prompt as they were, those disclosures were predictably vague because nobody knew what a Trump Administration might portend. Now fourth-quarter 2016 reports are hitting the streets, with many…
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Many thanks to the unmanned drone industry, which last week said the obvious about Donald Trump’s idea for government agencies to repeal two existing regulations for every new rule they want to adopt: it’s a simplistic notion that could actually harm new industries more than it helps them. The Commercial Drone Alliance sent a letter to…
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