December 12, 2009
Happy Hanukkah
Archive | December, 2009
The Data Accountability and Trust Act (H.R. 2221) was passed by the House on Tuesday. This act would requires the Federal Trade Commission to promulgate regulations requiring each person engaged in interstate commerce that owns or possesses electronic data containing personal information to establish security policies and procedures.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three former top officers of New Century Financial Corporation with securities fraud for misleading investors as New Century’s subprime mortgage business was collapsing in 2006. At the time of the fraud, New Century was one of the largest subprime lenders in the nation.
The theme of this year’s observance of the International Anti-Corruption Day is “Don’t let corruption kill development.” “When public money is stolen for private gain, it means fewer resources to build schools, hospitals, roads and water treatment facilities. When foreign aid is diverted into private bank accounts, major infrastructure projects come to a halt.
Join Compliance Building’s Doug Cornelius for a 60-minute Webinar at 11:00 am Eastern time on Wednesday, December 9. It’s free, sponsored by Martindale-Hubbell Connected. The webinar will give you examples of social media web-based tools helping legal professionals become more efficient and productive. Will we soon say goodbye to email? Panel
On Monday, the Supreme Court listened to the oral arguments in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (08-861). For me in the compliance world, the case is about the viability of PCAOB under Sarbanes-Oxley. For the constitutional scholars it is an important separation of powers case. Responding to concerns about accounting that…
Dow Jones and Ethisphere Institute are teaming up to present the 2010 Global Ethics Summit on February 23-24, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt New York City. I just confirmed that I will be attending, thanks to an offer from the event’s organizers. “In an effort to help companies deal with anti-corruption compliance and other significant issues,..
The California Supreme Court in Cotran v. Rollins Hudig Hall International, Inc. found that for an employer to have “good cause” to terminate an employee, the employer does not have to prove that allegations of misconduct are true, just that the employer fairly formed a reasonable belief that they were true.
The American Bar Association is running its third annual Blawg 100 contest. They winnowed a list of nominees down to 100 and divided them into 10 categories: News, Legal Theory, IMHO, Geo, Practice Specific, Business, Careers, Tech, Justice, and Lighter Fare. I decided to throw my support behind those blogs that I read and enjoy…
December 12, 2009
Compliance Building Round Up
Here are my posts on Compliance Building this week.
House Passes Far-Reaching Bill Tightening Financial Rules
Today, the House passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173 ), a week after it was introduced. It looks it is a mashup of other bills that were being tossed around in the House to regulate the financial industry.
Compliance Bits and Pieces for December 11
Here are some interesting stories from the past week.
Carried Interest Tax Legislation Suddenly Appears and Moves Forward
December 10, 2009
Tucked into the Tax Extenders Act of 2009 (H.R. 4213), is a provision targeted at partnership interests held by partners providing services. This proposal seems to be the same proposal offered by Congressman Sandy Levin from the 12th District of Michigan in H.R. 1935 which has been sitting in Committee
Data Accountability and Trust Act Passed by House
December 10, 2009
The Data Accountability and Trust Act (H.R. 2221) was passed by the House on Tuesday. This act would requires the Federal Trade Commission to promulgate regulations requiring each person engaged in interstate commerce that owns or possesses electronic data containing personal information to establish security policies and procedures.SEC Goes After Sub-Prime Lender
December 10, 2009
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three former top officers of New Century Financial Corporation with securities fraud for misleading investors as New Century’s subprime mortgage business was collapsing in 2006. At the time of the fraud, New Century was one of the largest subprime lenders in the nation.International Anti-Corruption Day
December 9, 2009
The theme of this year’s observance of the International Anti-Corruption Day is “Don’t let corruption kill development.” “When public money is stolen for private gain, it means fewer resources to build schools, hospitals, roads and water treatment facilities. When foreign aid is diverted into private bank accounts, major infrastructure projects come to a halt.Positioning yourself for Tomorrow’s Social Media Today: Practical Approaches for Legal Professionals
December 8, 2009
Join Compliance Building’s Doug Cornelius for a 60-minute Webinar at 11:00 am Eastern time on Wednesday, December 9. It’s free, sponsored by Martindale-Hubbell Connected. The webinar will give you examples of social media web-based tools helping legal professionals become more efficient and productive. Will we soon say goodbye to email? PanelTuesday Morning Quaterback of Free Enterprise v. PCAOB
December 8, 2009
On Monday, the Supreme Court listened to the oral arguments in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (08-861). For me in the compliance world, the case is about the viability of PCAOB under Sarbanes-Oxley. For the constitutional scholars it is an important separation of powers case. Responding to concerns about accounting that…Global Ethics Summit
December 8, 2009
Dow Jones and Ethisphere Institute are teaming up to present the 2010 Global Ethics Summit on February 23-24, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt New York City. I just confirmed that I will be attending, thanks to an offer from the event’s organizers. “In an effort to help companies deal with anti-corruption compliance and other significant issues,..An Effective Workplace Investigation
December 7, 2009
The California Supreme Court in Cotran v. Rollins Hudig Hall International, Inc. found that for an employer to have “good cause” to terminate an employee, the employer does not have to prove that allegations of misconduct are true, just that the employer fairly formed a reasonable belief that they were true.Voting is Open for the ABA’s Blawg 100
December 6, 2009
The American Bar Association is running its third annual Blawg 100 contest. They winnowed a list of nominees down to 100 and divided them into 10 categories: News, Legal Theory, IMHO, Geo, Practice Specific, Business, Careers, Tech, Justice, and Lighter Fare. I decided to throw my support behind those blogs that I read and enjoy…CLawBie Nominations
December 6, 2009
The Canadian Law Blog Awards, a.k.a. the Clawbies, are a project started back in 2006 with the goal of highlighting great blogs published by the Canadian legal industry. Steve Matthews and his team at Stem Legal have been working to advance Canadian legal blogging.
December 5, 2009
Books versus eReaders
December 5, 2009
Compliance Building Posts this Week
Here are links to my Compliance Building posts from the past week:
Compliance Bits and Pieces for December 4
Here are some compliance related news stories from the past week that caught my eye.
You Are Here: From the FTC for Your Kids
We’re from the government. We’re here to help. The Federal Trade Commission has launched a new site designed to help kids learn to protect their privacy, spot frauds and scams, and avoid identity theft. You Are Here is set up as a virtual mall.
Due to the increasing incidence of fund investors who want to transfer their investment fund interests, private investment funds face a risk of being classified as publicly traded partnerships. That would mean the fund would become taxable as a corporation.
Amendment to the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) amended the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 594 to define the term “financial, material, or technological support,” as used in sanction regulations.
Hulk Smash Compliance Program!!
Hollywood has done it. Now it’s your turn.
Reboot your compliance program.
FTC Guidelines Are In Effect
Today is a the day. The FTC’s recent updates to its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising are now in affect. To comply with the Guides, individuals (bloggers, users of social media) must disclose every “material connection” or relationship they have with an advertiser.
How to comply with the changes?
Enterprise 2.0 – The Book
At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Andrew McAfee handed out a few copies of this new book: Enterprise 2.0. I was one of the recipients of a shiny new copy with his autograph on the cover page.
If you have heard of Enterprise 2.0, they you have heard of McAfee.
How Fraudsters Try to Look Legitimate
The SEC is putting its new investor-focused website to good use: Investor.gov.
The first item that caught my eye was their article on how fraudsters use fake SEC registrations and bogus seals to make them look legitimate: Fake Seals and Phony Numbers: How Fraudsters Try to Look Legit.
December 4, 2009
Fun with Four Square
Lately I have been experimenting with Four Square, a location-based social networking platform. For me, adding the geographic component of social networking adds another serendipity factor to the web 2.0 movement.
Serendipity of location.
“What’s Happening” + “Where are you”
It allows you to explore tools to create meeting chances. We have already seen Twitter add a location feature to its platform. [Location, Location, Location.]
Four Square does a similar thing, but adds a fun factor to disclosing your location. You get badges for going to many places. You also get the title of “Mayor” at a location if you have visited that place more than any other Four Square participant.
I have to admit that Four Square brings out my competitive streak. I have been stacking up mayor titles by mixing up my morning coffee stops. Four Square is still new so it does not take much to become mayor at many locations.
I tried out BrightKite in the past, but found its user interface to be a bit clunky. I also found its database of locations to be inaccurate, with no way to add it or change it. It’s been a while since I’ve use BrightKite so it may have improved since then.
I found Four Square to be much simpler and easy to use. It has a nice link to Twitter. Even better, it is easy to turn the Twitter notification off or on each time you check in at a location.
Sign up for Four Square and give it a try. This is me: http://foursquare.com/user/dougcornelius
Scoble’s take on Four Square:
