SEC Smack Talk
Zing!
A peppery interview with “Madoff whistle-blower” Harry Markopolos recently appeared in the decidedly mainstream publishing environs of the New York Times Magazine.
In the Q&A, Markopolos (who conducted a lengthy, and nearly fruitless, effort to persuade the SEC that Bernard Madoff was a fraud), provides a mass audience with some unflattering inside baseball.
As someone [...]
Companies Cut Costs, Employees Cut Ethical Corners
Do enterprise cost reduction efforts cause ethical misconduct among employees?
This question poses a potentially troubling connection … and a new survey report provides a dispiriting answer: quite possibly.
The report is an addendum to the 2009 Ethics Resource Center’s recent update to its ongoing National Business Ethics Survey, which I blogged about here.
Here’s the jarring [...]
Case Study: Avoiding ERM Entropy
Leave it to an engineer to crystallize one of the toughest challenges companies face after putting in place an enterprise risk management (ERM) approach.
“Any system that is set in motion requires some energy to keep going,” notes Trinidad and Tobago-based Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited (PPGPL) President Eugene Tiah (a former engineer who also earned [...]
SEC: IFRS Is (Still) Coming
At a meeting earlier today, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reaffirmed its intention to require that U.S. publicly listed companies move to global accounting standards.
This is no surprise; the important outcome of today’s meeting was the announcement of a “Work Plan” (that is to be created).
Among other objectives, the Work Plan will “aid [...]
The Financial Crisis Taketh … and Teaches
It’s been widely reported that JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs managed risk better than the average bear during the financial crisis.
How did these two institutions accomplish this feat as their industry peers got crushed?
Answers to this question frequently crop up in current discussions about the evolution of enterprise risk management (ERM) practices.