Friday, February 16th, 2007
Levitt Loves SarbOx - Wrong. That's how former U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt describes moves spearheaded by President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Wall Street to roll back corporate governance standards enacted over the past few years.
Sarbanes-Oxley Backfires in Unregistered Bond Sales - Sarbanes-Oxley, the U.S. law designed to stamp out corporate fraud, is prompting more companies to keep secrets in the bond market.
A Truce in the Sarbox Tech War? - Will companies and their auditors ever agree on how to test information technology systems for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance? The Institute of Internal Auditors hopes its new guidelines on IT controls will help.
Unraveling Wall Street Reforms - While legitimate arguments perhaps can be made to relax some elements of Sarbanes-Oxley, the discussion and decision-making should not be driven by those whose previous collective misdeeds the legislation was designed to thwart.
Surging CEO pay sparks backlash - Growing backlash over extravagant pay packages for US corporate executives has moved from boardrooms to Congress and now even to US President George W Bush.
Wall Street Gets Set for XBRL - Financial sector CIOs, barely through with the hassles of Sarbanes Oxley and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), are steeling themselves for yet another government-driven technology challenge.
PwC to Pay $10M over 1996 Merger - A Georgia jury has returned a $10 million judgment against PricewaterhouseCoopers for "negligent misrepresentation" regarding the 1996 merger of nursing-home companies Convalescent Services and Mariner Health Group, according to published accounts.
CPA lauded for disclosing fraud at WorldCom - When Cynthia Cooper and her team of internal auditors failed to get an adequate explanation of "prepaid capacity" from colleagues in the WorldCom accounting department, they kept asking about the unusual entry in the company's books.
Shutterfly Names New Chairman - Marineau replaces Jim Clark, Shutterfly's original investor, who resigned as chairman in January. Clark said at the time that he left the company because the Sarbanes-Oxley law has taken corporate reform "too far" and was crimping his ability to lead the way he wanted.
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Saturday, February 10th, 2007
| March 8, 2007 |
| 12:00 pm | to | 1:30 pm |
I feel that our Roundtable session on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 went very well for all in attendance at the ITA. Part-1 of this 3-part series introduced the IT Community to the changing world of Regulatory Compliance, and how it impacts IT in each industry domestically and abroad.
Open Discussion in the group was focused on:
- What are the KEY Compliance Laws Affecting IT in the past, today and in the future? (HIPAA, GLBA, SOX, Privacy, SEC 17a-4, Info. Retention, Civil procedures, etc…)
- eDiscovery laws, keeping up with the infrastructures of your IT systems to support these laws
- Sarbanes-Oxley and other Financial regulatory laws, how implementing change to support them can make IT a stronger force in the corporate make-up.
- What is COSO and CobiT - and how are they used to Audit my IT Department?
- What does being Compliant MEAN for IT, and how do we know we are there?
- Frameworks and Methodologies used by IT, to structure and enforce internal controls throughout the organization to support those important systems and day-to-day business processes.
- There was much more discussion on resources used to research and implement solutions for these additional Regulatory tasks on IT, and also that the ITA will be hosting a BEST PRACTICES for POLICIES AND PROCEDURES in March, that will only reinforce these elements for IT and Corporate Management in the SMB markets.
To download a copy of the Presentation for your review, please use the following LINK: http://radiancompliance.org/ITA_20070208_IT_Compliance.pdf
- NOTE: This file is in PDF format of the slides, and about 6.2MB in size.
I hope you can join us NEXT month for Part-2 of our IT Strategy Series: WHAT ARE INTERNAL CONTROLS? Discussion will focus on What are General Controls and IT Controls, how they impact the Compliance Processes, what you probably have in place to jump-start becoming compliant, and how to mitigate the risks and get good documentation to safe-guard your department and business. Stay ‘tuned’ for more details to come! Next Roundtable is Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 12:00 PM.
- Laurie Faith
Next in the IT Strategy Series
IT Strategy Series: IT Controls – Do I have them and where I can I find them?
DATE: 03/08/2007 TIME: 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Having the springboard of a general understanding of IT Compliance, this second strategy series narrows into the identification of Risk within your IT department. Compliance is based on knowing you’re IT Controls and mitigating any risks to them. This session will define known IT controls (as accepted by governing bodies), understanding common risks and their impacts along with an introduction to some known IT Frameworks (ITIL, Cobit, ISO). This session will give a high level mapping of known controls to SOX and also how IT Controls align to other compliance laws (ECM, Privacy Laws, Data Recovery).
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Thursday, February 8th, 2007
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In parts of the business world, the term "Sarbanes-Oxley" has become synonymous with overbearing and counterproductive regulation. But the legislation itself may have improved things for some top information-technology executives.
Five years after the U.S. Department of Justice began investigating Enron, the changed legal environment of which SarbOx is the most visible part has given chief information officers a key compliance role. Computers and software run many of the systems that have helped companies tighten their financial processes and adhere to the Section 404 rule for internal controls.
"This is helping to bring CIOs to the table," said John Rostern, director of technology risk in the New York office of consulting firm Jefferson Wells. "They're being invited in." READ MORE
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*** Additional Buzz ***
Sarbox on Ice? - True or false: The SEC, the PCAOB, and Congress are lightening up on Sarbanes-Oxley and legal liability.
Top Ten Signs the Pendulum Has Swung - With Sarbanes-Oxley under fire, regulators, Congress, and the courts seem primed to ease up on post-scandal reforms.
Posted in Compliance Management, Sarbanes Oxley | No Comments »
