Posts Tagged ‘SEC enforcement’
Oracle Hit 2nd Time on FCPA Violations
The Securities and Exchange Commission has sanctioned Oracle for violations of the FCPA, the software giant’s second such incident in 10 years and one that provides a chance for the rest of us to talk about recidivist FCPA offenders. What happened? In one sense, the usual. Throughout the 2010s, Oracle subsidiaries in India, Turkey, and…
Read MoreMorgan Stanley Fined on Data Destruction
We have quite the reminder on IT risk today courtesy of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency just fined a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley for poor data protection practices, which even led to one incident where the bank’s old IT equipment was sold at auction with customer data still on the hard drives. The…
Read MoreBig Wall Street Settlement Coming Soon
Heads up, compliance officers! Word on the street is that regulators are poised to announce a billion-dollar settlement with numerous Wall Street banks for employees’ improper use of messaging apps and associated record-keeping failures, a case bound to give us more clues about the enforcement appetite among the SEC and other agencies these days. The…
Read MoreE&Y, the SEC, and ‘Gatekeepers’
The saying in Washington is that it’s not the crime that ruins you; it’s the coverup. Ernst & Young is learning this week how true that is, with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s $100 million fine against the firm for cheating on CPA exams and then failing to be forthcoming about the breadth of that…
Read MoreCohnReznick Dinged $1.9M on Sloppy Procedures
The Securities and Exchange Commission has fired a shot across the bow of the auditing world, charging audit firm CohnReznick and three of its partners on Wednesday with improper professional conduct involving two corporate clients that had previously faced charges of accounting fraud. The companies in question are Sequential Brands, which the SEC charged with…
Read MoreSEC Launches Crypto Push
The Securities and Exchange Commission made three notable enforcement moves in the cryptocurrency world last week, clearly sending a signal to this Wild West part of the capital markets that the SEC wants to bring some law and order to town. First, the agency announced that it is adding 20 enforcement agents to its cyber…
Read MoreSEC Sues Vale on Dam Disaster
The Securities and Exchange Commission is bringing charges against Brazilian mining company Vale, accusing the company of misleading investors for years about the safety of dams it built and managed in Brazil, until the Brumadinho dam collapsed in 2019 and killed 270 people in one of the worst mining disasters in history. The SEC filed…
Read MoreFCPA Reminders From Stericycle
Stericycle, the global medical waste giant, has agreed to settle FCPA charges against the company for widespread bribery in Latin America, giving the rest of us another case with lessons about the risks of rapid international growth and poor corporate culture. The settlement was announced Wednesday. Stericycle will pay $84 million in penalties to the…
Read MoreHolding Lawyers More Accountable
Corporate compliance and governance professionals often like to talk about the important role “gatekeepers” play in keeping an organization on the ethical path. Now an SEC commissioner is calling for new standards and accountability for some of the most important gatekeepers of all: corporate lawyers. Commissioner Allison Herren Lee gave the speech on Friday, and…
Read MoreKT Pays $6.3M to End FCPA Case
Compliance professionals have quite the FCPA case to consider this week, courtesy of the Securities and Exchange Commission hitting Korea’s largest telecommunications carrier with $6.3 million in penalties and disgorgement for all manner of corrupt practices in the 2010s. The company, KT Corp., has a long history of corruption. KT agreed to settle the SEC…
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