Posts Tagged ‘internal control’
Firm Fined on Loss Contingency Failures
The Securities and Exchange Commission has fined a Pennsylvania healthcare services firm $6 million for poor internal controls that allowed the company to keep looming lawsuit costs out of the financial statements, which in turn helped the company to meet Wall Street earnings expectations. The firm in question is Healthcare Services Group ($HCSG), which provides…
Read MorePodcast: The Importance of ‘ITGCs’
Everybody understands that strong controls over technology are crucial to effective corporate compliance, governance, and external reporting — but not enough people (myself included) understand how those IT controls are supposed to work. So when the Institute of Internal Auditors recently announced a certificate in IT general controls, I was intrigued. What education need did…
Read MoreAnother Look at Cybersecurity Shortcomings
The other week the Biden Administration issued an executive order to improve cybersecurity across the federal government. Now we have a peek at just how bad numerous government agencies are at the task — and what steps they’re likely to take to improve the situation, which could affect government contractors providing IT services. Said peek…
Read MoreMore on Cybersecurity, Compliance Risk
We have another report on cybersecurity threats this week, one that demonstrates just how difficult it is for large organizations to address this risk effectively — because while the vulnerabilities themselves are squarely a CISO’s concern, the damage they can cause is very much a regulatory compliance problem. The report comes from Onapsis, a cybersecurity…
Read MoreLessons Ever Given on Risk, Control
For several days now I’ve wanted to discuss risk management and compliance lessons we could learn from that cargo container ship trapped in the Suez Canal, but I was stuck on exactly what to say about it. My thoughts finally dislodged (that’s the last pun, I promise) after reading a superb analysis in the Financial…
Read MoreLessons on Algorithms, Ethics, and Equity
Compliance professionals searching for cutting-edge policy management mishaps, turn your gaze toward Stanford University. The mess that the medical school endured last week with its bungled distribution of covid vaccines to employees offers lessons to us all. What happened? According to press reports and many unhappy people on Twitter, Stanford Medicine started rolling out its…
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 MoreA Tale: Audit vs. Compliance
My phone rang the other day; it was the U.S. compliance officer at a large global business whom I know quite well. “Hey,” he said, “you know the statistic that more than half of internal audit people have felt pressure to cover up awkward findings in their work? I have a complaint about that.” I…
Read MoreGoldman Sachs, FCPA, and Internal Controls
Now that we’ve all had the weekend to contemplate the massive Goldman Sachs FCPA enforcement action from last week (because that’s how we all spend our free time, right?), let’s return to an issue that’s been on my mind since the settlement was announced. How does a company strengthen an internal control, when that control…
Read MoreGoldman Sachs’ Giant FCPA Deal
All right compliance professionals, it’s here: Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle corruption charges for its role in the 1MDB scandal — making Wall Street’s premier investment bank responsible for the largest criminal penalty in FCPA history. U.S. regulators announced the news today, although rumors of a settlement had been swirling…
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