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sandy ingram

Volatile markets may tempt hedge-fund fraud - 0 views

  • Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are allowed to use trading techniques like selling stocks short and using borrowed money and regulators do not require them to make their performance or other details public.
  • "We are experiencing some of the most difficult times ever, and difficult times create desperate people who may do desperate things,"
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    "If staff suddenly leave a hedge fund, investors should pay attention."
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    Volatile markets may tempt hedge-fund fraud
sandy ingram

Employee fined $1.1 million for erasing computer files - 0 views

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    "A former executive of hedge fund manager Citadel Investment Group LLC recently gave about $1.1 million to two Chicago charities, but the payments were not an act of good will. The money was actually a fine that a Cook County judge ordered Mikhail "Misha" Malyshev to pay for violating a previous court ruling to preserve documents in a lawsuit. In July 2009, Citadel had sued him for breaking a contractual promise not to compete with the hedge fund."
sandy ingram

http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/2009/risk-based-fcpa-compliance-assessments/ - 0 views

  • Companies lacking an anti-corruption compliance program face great legal, financial, and reputational risks. Government investigators will have no sympathy for those who fail to devote sufficient resources to compliance.
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    "The Need for Risk-Based FCPA Compliance Assessments How To Deal With Increasing FCPA Risks In a Time of Shrinking Budgets In a time of dwindling funds, growing risks, and increased government targeting of companies that cut compliance budgets, a proper anti-corruption assessment is a vital first step in creating a cost-effective compliance program When a warning comes straight from the mouth of the U.S. Government's lead prosecutor in a field directly affecting their bottom line, it is wise for businesses to pay heed. In an interview earlier this year with PBS's investigative journal, "Frontline," Mark Mendelsohn, the Deputy Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Section, which is charged with enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"), offered advice to all American businesses dealing with the current global recession. "I think that companies need to be especially vigilant in this economic climate to not cut back [on FCPA compliance]," Mendelsohn said. "Our law enforcement efforts are not going to be scaled back, and so it would be, I think, a grave mistake for a company to take that path.""
sandy ingram

Staff fraud 'on the rise'. Majority still undetected and unreportd - 0 views

  • "The vast majority of staff in any organisation are trustworthy and honest. However, businesses are now beginning to realise and understand the scale of the threat posed by the small proportion of staff that act dishonestly and defraud their employer."
  • According to the ACFE 2010 report on occupational fraud the median length of the schemes was 18 months from the time the fraud began until the time it was detected. The median loss caused by the occupational frauds in the report was $160,000. Nearly one-quarter of the cases caused at least $1 million in losses and nine cases caused losses of $1 billion or more.
  • Historically, the most serious threat from staff fraud has been centred on relatively senior employees in management positions. However, the major threat has now shifted down the organisational hierarchy to more junior members of staff, who have access to, and responsibility for, more confidential customer and payroll data than ever before,"
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  • "With as much as 30 per cent of all business failures attributable to employee theft, employers are interested in any device or technique that could detect or prevent employee theft.
  • "Given the present wave of corporate scandals and failures, it is not surprising that organisations are being expected to create strong ethical cultures and select employees who will fit into those cultures. This explains, to some extent, the growing emphasis on integrity testing in the business world.
  • Spitzer has simple advice for businesses who are concerned they may be at risk:
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    "Employee theft and fraud is on the increase - and an Australian start-up company believes it has pioneered a means of early detection. According to a recent survey conducted by KPMG, the total funds lifted from organisations came to $345 million - a significant increase from the $301 million of 2008, totalling 174,914 cases. "Employee fraud is a growing concern for organisations in all business sectors both in monetary and reputational terms," says Alon Spitzer, who has founded Integrity Elements, a company specialising in the new field of ' integrity testing and valuation'."
sandy ingram

Deloitte | E-Discovery: Mitigating Risk Through Better Communication | Deloitte Discove... - 0 views

  • The Deloitte Forensic Center’s analysis of the E-Discovery: Mitigating Risk Through Better Communication survey results1 identified three interrelated challenges. They are: Communication Awareness Readiness
  • At the heart of e-discovery are two corporate functions that historically have had little in common, and tend to speak their own technical languages: legal and IT
  • Neither can be truly effective in the e-discovery process without a clear understanding of the other, yet communication and coordination between these two departments appears to be unclear to many survey participants: More than one-third of respondents (36 percent) don’t know the answer to how their legal and IT departments communicate.
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  • Deficient communication and a lack of coordination between departments can lead to an organizational lack of awareness about e-discovery.
  • Awareness Issues
  • Communication Hurdles
  • According to the survey, more than one-third of respondents, including C-suite, (36 percent) don’t know how committed their company’s C-suite is to finding a solution for e-discovery issues.
  • Only 20 percent of respondents think legal resources are appropriately allocated to e-discovery
  • Many companies also lack the resources and sophistication to manage e-discovery effectively.
  • For respondents that say their firms are challenged by e-discovery, the most common complaints are: a lack of funds to address e-discovery requirements (25 percent
  • Of those respondents with an opinion, 62 percent say their company is concerned about e-discovery challenges posed by social media web sites and blogs
  • Given the extensive use today of social media such as Facebook and Twitter during employees’ work and personal time, this suggests an e-discovery challenge that may require attention by many companies.
  • Three Years from Now
  • E-discovery is anticipated to become harder: 44 percent of respondents expect e-discovery challenges, along with government rules and regulations, to increase over the coming three years
  • Mismanaged e-discovery has led to many tales of litigation woe, involving sanctions, lost cases and fines. Improper ESI management, as the Sedona Conference points out, is simply bad business.
  • Five Areas of Potential Improvement
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    "As the volume of electronically stored information (ESI) rises rapidly, improving the understanding among the C-suite, legal and IT functions is key to controlling costs and better managing e-discovery risks."
sandy ingram

Medical-data breach said to be major; involves nearly two-thirds of the insurers' subsc... - 0 views

  • The security failure, one of the several largest in nearly two years, involves nearly two-thirds of the insurers' subscribers. It became known only after The Inquirer requested information Tuesday evening. The insurers said the drive was missing from the corporate offices on Stevens Drive in Southwest Philadelphia. It noted that the same flash drive was used at community health fairs. "That seems grossly irresponsible," said Dr. Deborah Peel, a Texas psychiatrist who heads Patient Privacy Rights, an advocacy group.
  • The news of the breach comes at a time when there is more emphasis - and billions of dollars in federal funding - to develop protocols for electronic medical records, with information being shared among providers, insurers, and consumers.
  • Paul Stephens, director of policy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said that data breaches in the finance and retail sectors tended to involve more people, but that health data are very sensitive and may also contain payment information.
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  • Until The Inquirer asked for information, the company had not disclosed the data breach to affected members, most of whom live in Philadelphia and nearby counties
  • The federal website explaining the law says that breaches must be reported "without unreasonable delay and in no case later than 60 days."
  • They would not say how they know the computer drive was lost, not stolen. They would not comment on the riskiness of taking the drive to health fairs, nor would they say whether the data on the drive was encrypted.
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    A computer flash drive containing the names, addresses, and personal health information of 280,000 people is missing - one of the largest recent security breaches of personal health data in the nation. "We deeply regret this unfortunate incident," said Jay Feldstein, the president of the two affiliated Philadelphia companies, Keystone Mercy Health Plan and AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan. The breach, which involves the records of Medicaid recipients, is the first such Medicaid data breach in Pennsylvania since at least 1997, according to the state's Department of Welfare, which has oversight. "We take compliance [with federal privacy laws] very seriously," department spokeswoman Elisabeth Myers said Wednesday.
sandy ingram

DoD, DHS to align cybersecurity capabilities - 0 views

  • The new partnership appears to be part of an effort to move past previous agency turf wars. Last March, for example, Rod Beckstrom resigned from his position as director of the DHS' National Cyber Security Center, citing insufficient funding and support. In his letter of resignation to Napolitano, Beckstrom said the DHS's cybersecurity efforts are "controlled" by the NSA. Meanwhile, it is not uncommon for government departments and agencies to enter into formal agreements to work together on certain issues and to “swap” employees to improve synchronization, Marcus Sachs, director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, told SCMagazineUS.com on Thursday. This agreement is particularly important because the DoD and DHS have a joint mission to protect the United States in cyberspace, he said.
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    The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans Tuesday to streamline their cybersecurity capabilities to better protect the nation's networks. Late last month, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates signed an agreement that formalizes processes for the two agencies to work together to protect U.S. networks and critical infrastructure. The agreement outlines a framework whereby the agencies will provide cybersecurity support to one another, and was intended to improve collaboration as the two departments carry out their respective cybersecurity missions.
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