There is an an alphabet soup of acronyms, programs and initiatives suggesting, encouraging, cajoling and, in many cases requiring formal, written codes of ethics and business conduct. This article endeavors to make sense of it all and provide some practical advice on to best protect your company by focusing on the one common thread found in virtually all of the new statutory, regulatory and enforcement guidance: 'Risk Assessments.'

Rulings of interest to you and your practice.

Recent national rulings.

A 2007 study by the author's firm's Deloitte Forensic Center revealed relatively weak performance in many companies' fraud controls, raising concerns about the effectiveness of key aspects of corporate compliance, ethics and risk management programs. In-house counsel should consider how the findings might apply to their companies and what remedial steps they can take.

Features

John and Timothy Rigas ('the Rigases') were convicted in 2004 by a federal jury for their roles in looting millions of dollars from Adelphia Communications Co. and for failing to disclose billions of dollars in company liabilities on Adelphia's financial statements. In their appeal to the Second Circuit, the Rigases argued that because their convictions were predicated on Adelphia's accounting for liabilities in its financial statements, the prosecution was required to call an accounting expert to explain the technical aspects of applicable Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The Second Circuit recently affirmed all but one of the counts of convictions. Here is an analysis of the case.

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The authors are longtime members of the ABA Section of Taxation Civil and Criminal Tax Penalties Committee. Their thrice-annual Saturday morning meetings used to involve continuing education only among lawyers joined by the common bond of representing clients who were not just aggressive in their tax affairs but who really cheated (or at least were thought to have by the government). For the past few years, though, their sessions have been packed with practitioners who never before cared much about developments in the world of criminal tax law. Here's why.

Features

Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.

Features

Given that the raison d'etre of KERPs was to retain top management, it is perhaps ironic that debtors now must show that a compensation plan is not retentive ' or at least that retention is not its primary purpose ' in order to obtain bankruptcy court approval. This article offers a complete explanation and analysis.