NEWS
Introduction
Please mark your calendar for April 17th 2013 for
the Audit Committee conference, March 21st for The Mumbai GRC Summit, April
16th for the Paris conference and May 15-16 for the annual Copenhagen Compliance.
Audit
Committees
The focus of the Audit Committee has shifted from
the basic desire for companies to achieve appropriate governance controls,
and toward the larger framework of maximizing the business value by improving
operational decision making and strategic planning.
The main challenge for the Audit Committee is to stay
focused on the business in the pursuit of the company's economic performance.
Get your hands around the Governance, Risk Management
and Compliance (GRC) issues: The conference will highlight the different
roles of the board of directors and the CFO. GRC continues to be a growing
priority in resolving the complexities of business processes and operations.
The relationship between the audit committee and CFO is vital and success
is dependent on their shared responsibility.
In most cases the Audit Committees receives guidance
from the external auditors on almost all aspects, functions and responsibilities
of the Audit Committee. Therefore it may be worth while for the Audit Committees
to know the requirements on the other side of the table based on the Auditing
Standard No. 16, Communications with Audit Committees.
The Copenhagen Compliance conference on Audit Committees
aims to re-evaluate the functions of audit committees. We will present cases
and details about international experiences with audit committees that identify
areas of potential improvements for the functioning of audit committees.
The 2008–2009 financial crisis revealed that management
at certain committee's with the knowledge and approval of their board stook
decisions and actions that led to terrible outcomes for employees, customers,
shareholders, and the wider economy. What should the Audit Committee’s
have done differently?
Governance
Deregulation and market-based guidance followed by
the credit and economic crisis has changed the political order of the day
for the board of directors. As companies fight for global recognition the
main focus is to have the right Governance, risk management and compliance
(GRC) structures in place to identify the next potential systemic effect
of a future crisis. In other words, the rewards for investing in effective
governance are crucial.
As a result of the added emphasis on Good Governance
and Risk Management post the financial crisis, there seems to be a need
to clarify and distinguish the processes involving the regulatory function
from the supervisory function of the board of directors and managers.
The law that set up America's banking system in 1864
ran to 29 pages; the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 went to 32 pages; the Banking
Act that transformed American finance after the Wall Street Crash, commonly
known as the Glass-Steagall act, spread out to 37 pages. The latest act
in this series is the Dodd-Frank Act which is 848 pages long.
Risk
Management
The word Kaizen (改善), is Japanese for improvement.
Some believe that it means change (for the better). In any case it refers
to the philosophy or practices that focus on continuous improvement of processes,
be it in manufacturing, engineering, business or risk management.
Financial
Compliance
We need clear answers on how we ran our global economic
engine into the gutter and when we can see the economic and regulatory systems
back on track
