Financial regulators are paid, in part, to be a skeptical bunch.
The current malaise in the legal profession is taking some unusual forms.
When it comes to regulation it seems age can matter.
The Great Recession has dealt a tough hand to millions, from auto workers in Michigan to corporate lawyers and compliance officers on Wall Street.
The New York Times reported last week that members of the financial industry's upper echelons are starting to wonder if they should continue funding the Democratic Party as President Barack Obama takes aim at them.
There are many incentives for companies to do the right thing when it comes to compliance.
The complex world of financial crime (Wall Street and its sequel aside) has rarely received the Hollywood treatment, or even made a splash on the small screen.
As every compliance officer knows, there's nothing quite like the visit of a regulator to quicken the pulse, even if everything at the firm is in order.
Regulators around the world have been looking at how banks and other financial institutions are run in the hope of finding ways to avoid a repeat of the credit crisis.
Jeffrey Young, the former v.p. of supervision of First Allied Securities, has been fined for allegedly failing to supervise a former representative who has been charged with making unsuitable trades and churning the accounts of two Florida municipalities.
When it comes to writing a naughty-or-nice list, the U.S. public has decided that Wall Street bosses have had enough presents and need tougher rules to make them be good boys and girls.
The U.S. Supreme Court is not renowned for its efforts to build a fan base--T.V. cameras are still on the unwanted list, for example.
2009 won't go down as a vintage year for lawyers who service Wall Street and the City. But where there's crisis there's opportunity.
In one of the more surprising compliance quotes of the year, Bloomberg reported Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack as welcoming the more intimate oversight his firm receives from the Federal Reserve after switching to a bank holding company.
Officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority went back to school on Friday, visiting 18 elementary schools across the country to promote financial literacy among kids. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro pointed to record levels of financial ignorance among children, with three-quarters having failed a recent survey.
Wall Street took a battering over the last 12 months and so did those, such as corporate lawyers, who cater to its denizens.
The U.S. Supreme Court is in some ways an arena where lawyers do gladiatorial combat to win a thumbs-up.
With Halloween approaching, it's worth remembering that there can be scarier things to encounter this time of year than gangs of kids threatening vandalism to get candy, or looking at your post-meltdown 401(k).
The pendulum of opinion on financial regulation swings almost as regularly, though more predictably, than the markets themselves.
Attorneys and lobbyists were gritting their teeth last week as the U.S. Supreme Court kicked off its new term.
Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have faced a barrage of abuse for being too easy of the industry.
Many observers have lambasted the Canadian regulatory and court systems for failing to crack down on corporate fraud.
General counsel, like most people, have had a rough ride over the last year.
Some good deeds go unrewarded.
Sometimes you can't help for trying.
Next time your company's attorneys charge you for advising on a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement or nasty shareholder lawsuit, ask yourself a question: How committed are they to you, their client?
Investor advocates in the U.S. often despair when executives walk away from corporate skullduggery with barely a judicial slap on the wrist, or wallet.
How times change. Just a few months ago Wall Street banks were losing money, many coming cap-in-hand to Washington, D.C., for rescue cash.
Investment banks have earned themselves a lot of money running the rule over proposed deals and--in most cases--giving them the green light.
When most people want the answer to a tricky question, they search the Internet or read books.
During the recent (yet seemingly so long ago) good times for the financial services industry, it seemed to some observers that regulators at times ran scared of those they regulated.
A growing number of U.K. companies, fearing regulatory clampdowns and a rash of shareholder lawsuits, are buying insurance to safeguard executives' personal assets, according to Bloomberg.
Big corporate law firms, and particularly the stalwarts of Wall Street, have traditionally been seen as recession-proof.
Poor old Brits. No sooner do they start tapping the phones of potential fraudsters (CR, 6/29) than the Americans try to out-James Bond them.
Hey Mr. Fraudster, think you're safe from prying government eyes?
Confessed Ponzi-king Bernard Madoff may have spelled disaster for his investors and trouble for the Securities and Exchange Commission, but he's been a boon to the independent film business.
People often complain that greeting card companies push holidays they'd rather ignore.
The U.S. and the U.K. share many ties, from (broadly speaking) a language to an unusual interest in the British royal family.
Your conscience shouldn't be the only thing telling you cash-stuffed envelopes are the wrong way to get ahead in business.
The stress brought on by the recession is manifesting itself in variety of traditional and more unexpected ways.
She's already made herself the darling of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement staff by stopping them having to get Commission approval when seeking penalties (CR, 2/16).
Who says the world of financial misdemeanors isn't glamorous?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a new brokerage compliance tool.
A new study by academics from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business has found that wealthy senior executives are more likely than their less affluent counterparts to be busted for insider trading.
It's not only the banks and Detroit carmakers that are facing calls to change their ways.
Fortune reported late last month that the Topps Company will include Bernard Madoff in its 2009 baseball cards.
Corporate law firms have laid off thousands of attorneys in the last year as the transaction pipeline has dried up.
Thousands of attorneys have lost jobs this year, but according to CNN a number of law firms, hit by lost transactional work, are looking at creative ways to ease people onto or off their books via public interest projects.