Search results for: "accounting controls"
Internal Accounting Controls and Cyber Risk
Today I want to return to that recent enforcement action against RR Donnelley, where the Securities and Exchange Commission cited faulty internal accounting controls at Donnelley as grounds to impose a $2.1 million sanction over the company’s poor handling of a cybersecurity incident. What are internal control professionals supposed to make of an enforcement action…
Read MoreAccounting Controls: A Hollywood Tale
Sometimes the importance of internal accounting controls can be a little hard for compliance professionals to grasp, but fear not! A crazy tale from Hollywood this week gives us a great example of why internal controls matter and what can go wrong when they’re not working properly. The tale comes from Tom Hollander, the fairly…
Read MoreAnother Lesson on Accounting Controls
Royal Bank of Canada has settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission over poor accounting controls for software development, which might sound super nerdy — because it is, really — but the case also lets us ponder yet again the importance of a strong control environment. The SEC announced the case late last week.…
Read MoreMore Musings on FCPA Enforcement
I wanted to share more thoughts today about President Trump’s order to pause all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Lots of corporate compliance professionals have been talking about it — and while nobody has any clear sense yet of what comes next, we do have a better sense of the important questions to…
Read MoreEntergy Pays $12M on Poor Controls
Pull up a chair, SOX compliance professionals! Utilities giant Entergy Corp. just settled an accounting controls case with the Securities and Exchange Commission that offers several lessons about oversight of accounting processes and the failure to address weaknesses in a timely manner. The settlement was announced last Friday. Entergy is paying $12 million to settle…
Read MoreSome Reminders on Fraud Risk
Last week a former employee of Takeda Pharmaceuticals was sentenced to prison for a multi-million dollar embezzlement scheme against the company. The case is a good reminder that companies will always need strong internal accounting controls no matter what regulatory changes might happen in Washington, so let’s take a look. The ex-employee at the center…
Read MoreTelefónica Pays $85M on FCPA Fails
The Latin American telecom giant Telefónica settled FCPA charges late last week, paying $85 million and reminding everyone that at least for now (and possibly for a good long while yet), the world of corporate compliance and FCPA enforcement continues to turn. Let’s take a look at the lessons we can learn here. The Justice…
Read MoreRTX Settles Multiple Charges
Defense contractor RTX Corp. will pay more than $950 million to settle multiple criminal cases pending against it, including FCPA and export control violations in the Middle East and government contract fraud here at home. Compliance officers have a few different threads to unravel here, so let’s get to it. The Justice Department announced the…
Read MoreMoog Dinged on FCPA Violations
The Securities and Exchange Commission served up a rather hum-drum FCPA enforcement action last week. While the case certainly isn’t a show-stopper, it does offer compliance professionals a few insights about corporate corruption; so let’s fulfill our due diligence obligations and study it. The company is Moog Inc., maker of motion controls systems for aerospace,…
Read MoreLessons From Deere FCPA Sanction
Deere & Co. is paying $10 million to settle one of the more colorful FCPA cases we’ve seen in a while, replete with Thai massage parlors, envelopes of cash, sketchy overseas agents — and even a few lessons about compliance fundamentals from due diligence of acquisitions to program remediation. Let’s take a look. The Securities…
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