NEWS
- The
Informal Funds Transfer system of Havala is alive, well and enjoys
global growth
While the established global Banking and Financial Institutions
and System continue to debate the one-size-fits-all and ongoing Basel
reforms, now at no. IV and the Bank for International Settlements
is once again rewriting the rules that govern the banks capital to
mitigate their exposures to different types of risks, and while oversight
authorities focus on specific models to measure Counterparty Credit
Risk Exposures, there is an age-old parallel system of transferring
money and performing other monetary transactions that are completely
out of the officially governed oversight radar, scope and view. It’s
called Hawala or the poor man’s Bitcoin.
- The
Governance, Risk Management and Compliance and IT Security (GRC) issues
from The Panama Papers
- The
Bribery and Corruption component of Panama Papers and other offshore
investments
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has published
a searchable database that reveals the secrecy of nearly 214,000 offshore
entities, created in 21 jurisdictions, from Nevada to Hong Kong and
the British Virgin Islands. The primary reasons for the enormous interest
in the information on offshore companies are the names and details
of the real owners of the often smoky company structures.
- How
to Achieve Disclosure Consistency in Bribery, Fraud, Corruption (BFC)
and CSR Reporting
Corruption continues to be prevalent in many countries. This is
a serious problem because in the long term it hinders the corporate
and business development. Corruption is a complex social, political
and financial situation that affects many countries. Corruption undermines
democratic institutions slows economic growth and contributes to corporate
and governmental instability.
- The
perception and challenges of global bribery and corruption
When Transparency International first launched its global corruption
perceptions index in 1995, has been widely debated, and the result
is that the annual report is credited with placing the issue of corruption
on the international policy and public agenda.
- If
culture cannot come to compliance, then compliance must come to rescue
the corporate culture. Part I of III
When a corporate fraud or scandal is revealed, what shocks the
stakeholders most is often the bold defiance of the deception followed
by the lack of governance, oversight and management that allowed it
to happen.
- The
efforts of the EU commission to form committees to deal with global
tax issues
The fight for fair taxation in the EU is high on Parliament's agenda
following the revelations of LuxLeaks and the Panama papers. At a
time when EU countries are struggling to recover from the crisis,
the still parliament focuses on greater transparency and to end the
current unfair tax practices.
- How
can the supervisory board in financial institutions avoid scandals?
Germany's biggest bank has “serious” and “systemic” failings in
its controls against money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions.
These are some of the findings by the UK’s financial watchdog FCA,
which had put the lender in supervisory “extraordinary measures” category.
Amongst the weaknesses at the bank; are missing documents, lack of
transaction monitoring and placing inappropriate staff pressures to
take on certain individual clients.
- How
can the supervisory board in financial institutions avoid scandals?
Germany's biggest bank has “serious” and “systemic” failings in
its controls against money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions.
These are some of the findings by the UK’s financial watchdog FCA,
which had put the lender in supervisory “extraordinary measures” category.
Amongst the weaknesses at the bank; are missing documents, lack of
transaction monitoring and placing inappropriate staff pressures to
take on certain individual clients.
- The
Need for a Top-Down, Transparent Due Diligence Program for Communications
with all Stakeholders
Is your business prepared to launch a due diligence/anti-corruption
program?
- The
IT and Cyber Security Challenge
IT and Data must be proportional to the transparency of its governance.
Information Security officers feel that they are losing the battle
due to continued headlines about the cyber-theft or data breach have
made their priorities difficult. The focus of the IT and cyber security
day is achieving digital trust so that information and data transition
can move safer and faster.
- The
Timeline & Milestones for EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Companies throughout the EU will face significant challenges in
handling personal data when the General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) goes live. The GDPR will automatically translate into national
legislation and will present dramatic changes on how personal data
will be collected, stored, accessed, disclosed and utilised from 2018.
- Tax
issues and the Audit Committee
In this article, we review the limitations of using the external
auditor for tax planning services and should the audit committee permit
tax shelters to be sold by non-audit partners of the external auditor.
- A
well-functioning Audit Committee is the key to achieving good governance
Based on the new rules and regulations on auditor independence
and board responsibilities, all audit committee have to update their
charter, composition and configuration to comply. We suggest that
a review, assessment and evaluation of the impact, principles, practices
and functions must be conducted, before the new regime goes into effect.
At the Audit Committee events in Copenhagen and London, participants
will receive three different tools to implement, adopt or update the
new requirements.
- Updating
the Auditor Independence and Audit Committee issues
After significant changes in 2002 post-Enron scandal, the rules
governing the external auditor and therefore the audit committee are
now fast evolving. The EU regulations that come into force in June
2016 aims to improve selection, competition, price and choice by changing
the external auditor. The professional services firms are heavily
investing in new intelligent technology and data analytics, to take
care of routine audit chores. The merry-go-round of audits substitutions
between the Big Four — PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG is rotating.
- Implications
of audit regulation and directive to restore integrity and trust between
companies, markets, and the audit committee
Audit committee members and external auditors, in particular, are
the most important gatekeepers to provide attention to financial reporting
and financial fraud processes. Each function has a responsibility
to foster high-quality, reliable financial reporting. Stakeholders
recognise that audit committee members and statutory auditors exercise
a significant amount of judgment on a day-to-day basis, and are not
in the business of second-guessing good faith judgments. The focus
of the seminar is to provide updated guidance on how audit committee
members can carry out their responsibilities, and how auditors can
comply with relevant auditing standards in their audit work, based
on the audit reform.
- Audit
Committee Network
Global companies are increasingly met by new regulations and mandates,
that continually challenge the corporate governance, risk management,
compliance and IT security (GRC) processes and therefore make greater
demands to the audit committee. The Copenhagen Compliance® UK Ltd.’s
UK Audit Committee Governance Network is a group of audit committee
chairs, members, and stakeholders who are committed to improving the
performance of audit committees and the board of directors by enhancing
trust in financial markets and all stakeholders.
