Is the SEC outmatched, or just “inefficient”?
Philosopher and writer George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It’s hard to fathom that people are already forgetting what caused our economic crisis (the conclusions of the bi-partisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are here), but some members of Congress make us wonder about that. We listened to a telephone news conference...
Office Depot: Taking care of (analysts’) business …
News of the $1 million settlement Office Depot (ODP) has entered into with the Securities and Exchange Commission came with something of a wave of nostalgia for us here at the footnoted global campus. The feds, of course, accused the office-supply giant of giving analysts a wink and a nod in 2007 to let them...
A tale of two corruption settlements …
Call us old-fashioned, but we think that a federal investigation for bribery or foreign corruption, even a small one relative to a company’s size, is significant, and warrants disclosure. We recently took General Electric (GE) to task for sweeping its own foreign corruption inquiry under the rug. Last Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission and...
Citi settles as big firms fret over obscenities …
Another stormy summer day in Washington, another high-profile lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission — this one against Citigroup and former senior executives of the company. Once again, it’s about disclosure, and the agency’s press release puts it succinctly: “Citigroup repeatedly made misleading statements in earnings calls and public filings about the extent of...
GE settlement follows silence over inquiry …
It isn’t every day that one of the biggest industrial companies settles foreign bribery charges — and almost acknowledges the allegations in the process. Given that the company didn’t tell investors that the investigation was even underway, that’s not half bad. Today General Electric (GE) settled allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that several...
Question about Dell’s settlement timeline …
Now that Dell (company and founder alike) has settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission, no doubt investors and management will forge ahead. But we want to take one moment to look back — not to the sordid accounting gimmicks and misleading disclosure laid out in the SEC’s case, but rather to Dell’s disclosures about...
FootnotedPro: Revisiting a foreign-corruption settlement
Usually, after a company settles serious charges with federal prosecutors and regulators, investors can relax a little, and assume the matter is behind them. That may not be the case with one contractor we looked at more closely in a FootnotedPro report that went out to subscribers this afternoon. The company’s filings suggest an independent...
Ritholtz says: Give the SEC teeth!
My good friend and blogger extraordinaire Barry Ritholtz wrote such a compelling post yesterday about the SEC that I thought it was worth sharing with footnoted.org readers. Here it is in its entirety as only Barry can say it:
The problems at the SEC were decades in the making.
The agency is supposed to be an investor’s...
