Search results for: "President Trump"
DOGE, Baited & Switched
Don’t look now, compliance professionals, but remember the DOGE commission’s promises to streamline federal regulation and improve efficiency? That’s all falling apart. Now it’s just another Elon Musk slash-and-burn campaign to break everything and let others clean up the mess. At least some of those others will likely be you. It seems like just weeks…
Read MoreTrump Fires IGs Across Government
President Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general across the federal government Friday night, yet another sign that Trump has little concern about objective mechanisms for accountability in his administration. The president fired at least 12 inspectors general, according to an article in the Washington Post, although other news outlets later reported that as…
Read MoreArchives, 2019: A Good FCPA Settlement
Radical Compliance is taking an off-the-grid vacation for the next 10 days, so we are reprinting some of readers’ favorite posts from the archives. The following ran in February 2019. Now that we’ve had a long weekend to digest the FCPA enforcement action imposed against Cognizant Technologies last week, compliance officers have a lot more…
Read MoreThe Question Behind Spotify and Joe Rogan
Sometimes a CEO says something so wrong-headed about corporate priorities that the statement cries out for a close read. Such is the case with Daniel Ek, chief executive of Spotify, and what he said this week about Joe Rogan and misinformation on the Spotify platform. Most of you probably know the basics of the Joe…
Read MoreTrump, the Coup, and Corporate Ethics
Corporate America might be hoping that the difficult issues raised by President Trump’s attempted coup this week and the remaining days of his term will somehow pass them by. Too bad. What Trump has unleashed isn’t something businesses will be able to avoid. In several practical ways, dealing with Trump and his minions — both…
Read MoreFive Compliance Events to Watch in 2021
That’s it, folks: the hellish 365 days otherwise known as 2020 is now over. It was a brutal, bitter year; and the consequences of pandemic, recession, and political rancor will echo for years to come. Those consequences, however, will start to come immediately. So before we return to the grind of emails to answer and…
Read MoreMore on Goodwill, Internal Controls
Today I want to circle back to that lawsuit the SEC filed last week against Sequential Brands for failing to impair its goodwill assets in a timely manner. It’s a glimpse of poor internal control that raises an intriguing question: How many other companies might be in a similarly precarious position? After all, goodwill has…
Read MoreAML Reform and Whistleblowers
I try to be as cynical as possible about Congress, but this week may be one of those rare times when lawmakers actually do something intelligent. They’re poised to overhaul the nation’s anti-money laundering laws in a dramatic way, with a potentially huge gift to compliance officers to boot. That overhaul is the Anti-Money Laundering…
Read MoreBank Regulator Props Up Energy Lending
The Trump Administration is trying to push through a rule that would neuter banks’ ability to consider ethics and reputation issues when offering services — a kiss to the oil & gas industry, and one that would undermine banks’ ability to consider social and ethical factors when evaluating business relationships. The Office of the Comptroller…
Read MoreThe Biden Administration & Compliance
Well, thank the Lord this is ending. The Trump Administration has given the United States (and the world) four years of ignorance, incompetence, immorality, greed, divisiveness, and corruption. President Trump has been a singular menace to this country and the American experiment; and also to corporations that have struggled to navigate the cultural divisions Trump…
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