1 / 5

6 Months Since Sarbanes/Oxley

6 Months Since Sarbanes/Oxley. 259 criminal actions in FY2002 by 30 different U.S. Attorney's Offices and DOJ for securities-related offenses or obstruction of justice in SEC investigations;

Patman
Download Presentation

6 Months Since Sarbanes/Oxley

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. 6 Months Since Sarbanes/Oxley • 259 criminal actions in FY2002 by 30 different U.S. Attorney's Offices and DOJ for securities-related offenses or obstruction of justice in SEC investigations; • 163 SEC actions for financial reporting and issuer disclosure violations in FY2002, 46% higher than FY2001 and 58% higher than in FY2000; • Record 598 SEC enforcement actions, 24% more than in FY2001, and 19% more than in FY2000; • 126 officer/director bars, 147% more than in FY2001 and 232% more than in FY2000; • 48 TROs seeking immediate relief, up 55% from FY2001 and 45% from FY2000.

  2. Future of Enforcement More Resources and Better Coordination: • DOJ Corporate Fraud Task Force (DOJ, FBI, Treasury, DOL, USPIS, SEC, CFTC, FERC, FCC) • U.S. Attorney ($9m in FY04 for new fraud prosecutors) • FBI ($16m in FY04 for new fraud agents) • SEC (47% increase in FY03 & 17% increase in FY04) • State Attorneys General • District Attorneys • State Securities Regulators • NYSE/Nasdaq/Other SROs

  3. DOJ Charging Principles • Factors used to decide whether to prosecute: • Nature and seriousness of offense • Pervasiveness of wrongdoing in corporation • Corporation’s history of similar conduct • Company’s voluntary disclosure and cooperation • Existence and adequacy of compliance program • Corporation’s remedial actions • Collateral consequences of prosecution • Adequacy of prosecuting only individuals for crime • Adequacy of civil or regulatory enforcement actions

  4. SEC’s New Enforcement Model In evaluating charging decisions, Enforcement Division looks at 4 factors: • Self-policing: Did company establish effective compliance procedures? • Self-reporting: Did company conduct thorough review of misconduct, and promptly and completely disclose to regulators? • Remediation: Did company dismiss or appropriately discipline wrongdoers, and improve internal controls? • Cooperation: Did company provide SEC staff with all information on timely basis?

  5. What Actions Should Be Taken? • Make sure you have necessary compliance programs in place (general code of conduct and ethics, money laundering, FCPA, insider trading, antitrust, environmental, export/import controls, OSHA, etc.) • Director & Officer education and training • Internal financial reporting system for executive officer certification • Corporate Responsibility Officer • Internal systems for handling dissenters & whistleblowers

More Related