Corporate boards all want to believe that their companies maintain an ethical culture. Each board members knows the right words, platitudes and buzz words to use. No one can fault them there. But like every issue in life, when push comes to shove, what actual commitment of time and effort do board members actually devote to the specific issue? And if they do commit to...
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I always loved Tarzan movies, especially the movies starring Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan. (Here is a sample). Tarzan always had a nice house, a great tree house with vines swings for diving and jumping into the water. In the 1990s, Bill Gates of Microsoft fame correctly predicted that computing power and capabilities would eventually move from the desktop to the Internet. In essence, Gates was...
I guarantee you if you ask your corporate board to define “ethical culture” and “compliance,” and their actual day-to-day responsibilities in this area, you will quickly realize most board members have no clue. This is not a controversial statement because corporate board members, for the most part, are clinging to old ways when it comes to board responsibilities – focus on the financials, monitor your...
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. Mark Twain Frankly, I have to admit my reaction to the recent Business Roundtable’s issuance of a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, which was signed by 181 CEOs who committed to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers,...
We all know that businesses rely on a large number of third-party vendors to support their business operations. Many of these third parties require access to a company’s data and its internal information and technology systems. This digital fact of life creates a real cyber risk for illegal intrusions. Over half of all cyber-attacks are the direct or indirect result of third party access. Third-party...
Deepak Chopra, one of my favorite “thinkers” (if that is a word) reminds us that there is no such thing as a coincidence – there is what he terms a “synchronicity of the universe.” (See here and here for some additional explanation). Not to say, I told you so, but around the same time that the Capital One data breach occurred, I was reminding clients...
Juniper Networks agreed to pay the SEC $11.7 million to settle FCPA violations for conduct occurring in Russia and China. See Order Here. Under the settlement, Juniper Networks agreed to disgorgement of $4 million, a $6.5 million civil penalty, and pre-judgment interest of $1.3 million. The Juniper Networks investigation was initiated approximately six years ago in 2013. The Justice Department had declined to prosecute Juniper...
If there ever was a poster-child for reputational damage for a financial institution, Deutsche Bank would be the first and only candidate. Talk about a bank that is in trouble and continues to fall under government scrutiny. Last week, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay the SEC $16 million for its hiring of relatives of public officials in China and Russia. (Here). Deutsche Bank joins a...
In an interesting decision, well worth a read here, on August 9, 2019, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected Ng Lap Seng’s appeal of his 2017 conviction for bribery of united Nationals officials. In affirming the conviction, the Second Circuit ruled that the Supreme Court’s holding in McDonnell (see blog post here), in which the Court ruled that under 18 USC...
