...FRAUD AND SOCIETY ARTICLE SUMMARY 9 This is an article summary of CRYING FOUL: WHISTLEBLOWER PROVISIONS OF THE DODD-FRANK ACT OF 2010, Umang Desai, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, 2011, 43 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 427. This Article examines how the Dodd-Frank Act, would encourage whistleblower participation in the promotion of corporate governance in an attempt to restore integrity in the corporate world and the financial markets after the wave of the several of the major fraudulent scandals. The provisions of the Act, are more likely to increase the financial burden on both corporations and the government, but however it has some consequences that could greatly diminish the positive impact of this legislation. To delineate the goals and effects of any whistleblower provisions, it is important to understand the historical treatment of whistleblowers in the legislation and corporate practice. Accordingly, after examining the basic concepts of corporate governance, as well as prior treatment of whistleblowers in the existing whistleblower’s legislation. The primary goals of corporate governance in a market-based system include full disclosure and the production of accurate financial information. Whistleblowers have the potential to play an important role in this system because they are often the first to know when corporate disclosures are inaccurate. Corporate governance regulations are also intended to align the goals of the corporation's leaders with those of its shareholders ...
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...Dodd-Frank Act: Did it Work? Introduction “With the President’s signature, the [Dodd-Frank Act] will mark the greatest legislative change to financial supervision since the 1930s,” according to Margaret Tahyar, partner and member of the New York Financial Institutions Group (Tahyar). Officially signed by Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act gave positive hope for the future for financial markets and institutions, being viewed as the “most comprehensive financial reform since the Glass-Steagall Act” (Amadeo). However, since the implementation of the bill, various differing opinions on whether the passing of the act has truly helped or hindered the overall financial economy have prevailed. Dodd-Frank Act Overview Officially signed as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the bill was implemented to change and supervise all financial institutions. More commonly referred to as the Dodd-Frank Act, named after the two legislators who proposed it, Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, the act was created in result of the Great Recession of 2008 and to rein in large Wall Street companies that contributed to the crisis in order to prevent future devastations (Peirce, Robinson and Stratmann). As of 2014, only a third of the nearly 400 required rules had been finalized and only one third had been proposed (Culp). Kimber Amadeo, a US Economy Expert, provides the eight major regulation changes that were brought about from the Dodd-Frank...
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...Dodd-Frank Act: Did it Work? Introduction “With the President’s signature, the [Dodd-Frank Act] will mark the greatest legislative change to financial supervision since the 1930s,” according to Margaret Tahyar, partner and member of the New York Financial Institutions Group (Tahyar). Officially signed by Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act gave positive hope for the future for financial markets and institutions, being viewed as the “most comprehensive financial reform since the Glass-Steagall Act” (Amadeo). However, since the implementation of the bill, various differing opinions on whether the passing of the act has truly helped or hindered the overall financial economy have prevailed. Dodd-Frank Act Overview Officially signed as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the bill was implemented to change and supervise all financial institutions. More commonly referred to as the Dodd-Frank Act, named after the two legislators who proposed it, Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, the act was created in result of the Great Recession of 2008 and to rein in large Wall Street companies that contributed to the crisis in order to prevent future devastations (Peirce, Robinson and Stratmann). As of 2014, only a third of the nearly 400 required rules had been finalized and only one third had been proposed (Culp). Kimber Amadeo, a US Economy Expert, provides the eight major regulation changes that were brought about from the...
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...repeating itself. The only question was what to do. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, was the proposed answer. The act was the work of Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the Financial Services Committee and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. The purpose of the legislation is “to promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end “too big to fail,” to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes” (The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, 2012). While the law officially made it easier for whistleblowers to alert authorities to fraud, the law itself can be seen as unprogressive, rather than progressive, or forward thinking. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, fraud can cost an average company five percent of their annual revenues, which makes the detection of such fraud a priority for all stakeholders (Brink, Lowe & Victoravich, 2013). Prior to the Dodd-Frank Act, employees could only report instances of fraud internally, which triggered an organization to investigate the tip. This could potentially cause a conflict of interest. An advantage of the Dodd-Frank Act was the Whistleblower Rule, which aimed to improve...
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...Guohui Huang ACCT 431-Fall 2014 09/19/2014 Dodd-Frank Act The Dodd-Frank Act, also known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Dodd-Frank Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, and by the Senate Banking Committee former Chairman Chris Dodd and therefor named after the two men. The Dodd-Frank represents the most comprehensive financial regulatory reform measures taken since the Great Depression; it was initiated in response to the devastating Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. In simplest terms, the Dodd-Frank Act is a law that places major regulations on the financial industry. In general, the 2,300-page act covers virtually every aspect of the financial services and banking industries. The Act imposed restrictions and reforms upon the industries that had previously been lacking of any substantial regulations. In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act in to Law to help secure the future economy of the U.S. However, before the official passing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, America had gone years without accountability for Wall Street and other large banks. The country suffered its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression due to this failure to hold these banks liable for their actions. Businesses failed, the housing market crashed, personal savings were wiped out, and millions of jobs were lost. There are just...
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...Dodd-Frank Act and The Consumer Protection Agency. Finance 5000 Webster University Mr. Smith Patrick Overby Overby41@gmail.com/ 915-540-1267 Spring 2 2015 INTRODUCTION The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act or the Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law in 2010 due the financial collapse of the economy. It provided regulatory protection for the consumer and oversight on how banks issued loans. It provided a blueprint for how to approach to resolving the challenges that the financial markets can create. The framework of the law resembles The New Deal in the 1930s because of the Great Depression. The reforms implemented by the Dodd-Frank Act will have far-reaching effects on the financial system and our economy. The Dodd-Frank Act allows company stockholder to determine the type of compensation packages of that management receive. Businesses must create a committee to assess and decide the amount awarded to their leaders. There are myriad of viewpoints towards Dodd-Frank from the detractors and proponent of the law. Individuals who are against the law believe that it is inflexible and will hurt businesses. The supporters of the law understand that this will limit the power of the financial institution. Dodd-Frank Act In 2008, the country was going through one of the worst financial crisis in history that resembled the Great Depression of the 1930’s. It not only affected the U.S. but also threatened the total collapse of large financial institutions...
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...Are the Dodd Frank Act Whistleblowing Measures Effective? Whistleblowing in the Financial Markets: Name: Professor: Course: Date: In the wake of the Global-Financial Crisis there have been various strategies employed to improve corporate governance, but the main question to ask will they work? The expansion of whistleblower bounties under s.992 of the Dodd-Frank Act 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act) has been one such measure. This measure has been identified as significantly controversial, because it is superseding the traditional internal reporting processes (Schuman & Keating, 2011). The Dodd-Frank Amendment Act that was introduced in 2011 was an attempt to mitigate the potential harm that offering bounties to whistleblowers may have; albeit it seems to be side-lined through consultation processes. Thus, the following research will explore if the bounty provisions are a necessary and effective tool to increase supervision within financial institutions. The concept of “Whistleblower” needs to be identified before moving on in this discussion. The concept relates to a company insider reporting to an appropriate body when there are actions that are breaching the law or acting unethically (Kohn, 2011). Thus, whistleblowing and corporate governance are intrinsically linked. The indications are that the use of monetary incentives is not the most effective model to enforce whistleblowing as an effective deterrent, which can be supported by the poor statistical reception under the...
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...Dodd-Frank Progress Report July 18, 2012 Generated using the Davis Polk Regulatory Tracker™ Dodd-Frank: Two Years Later State of Play to Date: As of July 18, 2012, a total of 221 Dodd-Frank rulemaking requirement deadlines have passed. This is 55.5% of the 398 total rulemaking requirements, and 78.9% of the 280 rulemaking requirements with specified deadlines. Of these 221 passed deadlines, 136 (61.5%) have been missed and 85 (38.5%) have been met with finalized rules. Regulators have not yet released proposals for 19 of the 136 missed rules. Of the 398 total rulemaking requirements, 123 (30.9%) have been met with finalized rules and rules have been proposed that would meet 134 (33.7%) more. Rules have not yet been proposed to meet 141 (35.4%) rulemaking requirements. www.davispolkportal.com 2 Contents Infographic: Dodd-Frank at the Two-Year Mark Word Map: Volcker Comment Letters Title VII Complexity Graph Tasks for Swap Dealers and Major Swap Participants Regulator Meetings with Outside Participants Over Time Dodd-Frank Rulemaking Progress by Agency Title VII Progress on Required Rulemakings Dodd-Frank Rulemaking Progress on Passed Deadlines Dodd-Frank Rulemaking Progress in Select Categories Dodd-Frank Rulemaking Progress by Due Date Dodd-Frank Statutory Deadlines for Required Rulemakings Dodd-Frank Study Progress by Due Date Dodd-Frank Statutory Deadlines for Required Studies 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 3 Infographic:...
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...kind of danger to the public or the environment. Whistle-blowing can be internal or external. The whistle blowers are often well educated people holding professional positions and are altruistically motivated. They allow themselves to be guided by their own attitudes and hold utilitarian beliefs. However, in case of being found out, the effects can be vastly debilitating for them including losing the job, isolation and personal life being put in jeopardy. The Dodd Frank law provides the whistle blowers protection from retaliation from the companies. If companies retaliate to whistle blowing the employees reporting wrong doing are protected by the Dodd Frank's anti retaliation statute and liable for double back pay (Miceli, et. al. 1984). Introduction Recently, a case of whistle blowing had come to light in September last year when Khaled Asadi filed a complaint that G.E. Energy (USA) violated the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. He alleged that he had been terminated after making an internal report of a possible securities law violation. Asadi had accepted GE energy's offer in 2006 to be its s its Iraq Country Executive and relocated to Amman, Jordan. While serving in this position, Asadi came to know that GE Energy had hired a woman closely associated with a senior Iraqi official to win his favor for negotiating a lucrative joint venture...
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...11-8-2011 Financial Markets & Inst Dodd-Frank Assignment The Dodd Frank Act has been created as a regulatory reaction from the recent financial crisis. The magnitude of its implications and provisions has not been seen since the great depression and will be conducted as a major overhaul to the financial systems rules. Financial regulation within a system that clearly had ulterior motives and lacked market discipline is inevitable. Without clear transparency of what and how borrowers are investing individuals savings will surely lead to moral hazard and conflicting interests. With Dodd Frank hopefully some of this asymmetric information will be largely more apparent to an inspecting investor. This Act aims to promote the financial stability of the United States financial system by implementing rules and regulations to improve accountability and transparency. Dodd Frank mainly addresses issues dealing with ending the "too big to fail" banks, protecting the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, ensuring consumers safety from abusive financial services practices, and for other related purposes. The legislation gives the government more power to step in and "unwind" financial firms that are failing, enables more oversight of the derivatives market, and to protect the individual investor (Bentley). Thanks to Dodd-Frank, we will see whistleblowers offered incentives for reporting compliance violations to a larger and more powerful SEC. The SEC will also have the power to impose...
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...The full name of the bill is the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but it is better known and most often referred to as Dodd-Frank. The Act was signed into Federal law President Barack Obama on July 27, 2010 as a prompt response to the Great Recession of 2008. Initially proposed amid the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, the bill’s fundamental intention is to prevent another collapse of a major financial institution like Lehman Brothers. In a word, Dodd-Frank is a comprehensive and complicated piece of financial regulation that places pivotal regulations on the financial industry; such regulations would have tremendous effects on all federal financial regulatory agencies. The bill consists of about 16 major reform propositions and contains hundreds of pages, however, we will only focus on major rules of regulation....
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...the Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley Acts have to financial markets and what are the similarities or differences between these Acts. The Dodd-Frank Act was proposed by Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in the House of Representatives and former Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, in response to the financial and economic crisis witnessed from 2007-2010. Sarbanes-Oxley established heightened standards for the boards and management of both public companies and public accounting firms. The law was passed after the myriad scandals that rocked American securities markets, e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and others. Sarbanes-Oxley is wide in scope, establishing numerous responsibilities on the part of corporate boards, with compliance closely monitored by the government. While employees commonly discover fraud before other monitors, many are reluctant to report it. In an effort to encourage employees to report wrongdoing, Section 301 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) requires audit committees of public companies to establish a reporting channel that allows employees to confidentially and anonymously submit claims involving questionable accounting or auditing matters. Despite these internal whistle blowing programs, there is still concern over employee willingness to report wrongdoing. Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Provisions...
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...SNITCHING FOR RICHES: WHISTLEBLOWER BOUNTIES AND THE $96 MILLION CHERYL ECKARD SETTLEMENT Introduction Bounties have been employed by United States government over the history of our Nation. As differentiated from rewards, which offer payment for accomplishment of a specific act such as providing information that leads to the capture of a particular criminal, bounties are tailored to encourage the services or actions by some class of persons in pursuance of a governmental purpose. One of the earliest examples in the United States is the grant of bounty land grants during both the Revolutionary War and Civil War. For the purpose of encouraging longer military service, this bounty system would offer land to men fit for service in return for some specified number of years of military service. Although arguably not a major factor in the United State victory in both wars, this bounty system accomplished its purpose as evidenced by the United States enticing enough men into ranks of military service to further its war campaign. Today, a common use of bounties is as an incentive for a class of persons, commonly referred to as whistleblowers, with knowledge of misconduct on the part of private or public organization to report that misconduct which is in violation of the law or against the public interest. The government encourages whistleblowing through the use of bounties and anti-retaliation laws that make up a scheme for whistleblower protection. Whistleblowers face many obstacles...
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...Research Paper Matthew Emery memery@capella.edu BUS3004 Developing a Business Perspective Lynn MacBeth 08/12/2012 Too Big to Stay Introduction A financial institution so interwoven in the fabric of the national economy that its failure could cause a massive ripple effect is deemed “too big to fail”. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, their hard earned dollars are the only thing between salvation and failure for these companies. Poor management or industry instability can ruin any business, but the larger an institution gets, the larger the collateral damaged induced by their failure will be. It is the duty of a responsible government to never leave their citizens vulnerable to such a catastrophe. The goal of this paper is to prove that too big to fail policy is what turned a period of stagnant growth into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. It is a well known fact that the housing market and therefore the United States economy started slipping in late 2007. As the economy was faltering, it still managed to not slip into recession status until September 2008. It is lees than coincidental that America's fifth largest financial institution, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, the very same time the economy plummeted. The instability of the market led to runs on banking institutions, which in turn led to more bank failures, which led to massive bailouts. These bailouts, while helpful at the time, lead to unprecedented...
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...of America’s economy, the Sarbanes-Oxley act and the Dodd-Frank act have attempted to reinforce and uphold the single most important virtue that our capitalist society so desperately depends on, trust. Many of the following names are familiar to us all by now, and for the wrong reasons: Enron, Lehman Brothers, World-Com, and Tyco. So what have SOX and DOD actually accomplished for our capitalist society? What can they actually do to help avert such catastrophic situations in the future? Let us begin with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Under the watchful eye of the Securities Exchange Commission the Sarbanes-Oxley act strives to protect the investing public from fraudulent and erroneous accounting practices, in addition to improving the accuracy of public financial statements. The act has transformed the world of accounting by: creating the PCAOB (Title I), increasing an auditor’s independence (Title II), increasing the responsibility/liability of a company’s senior management (Title III), enhanced financial statement disclosure requirements (Title IV), eliminating analyst conflicts of interest (Section V), increasing corporate and criminal fraud accountability (Section VIII), enhancing white–collar crime penalties (Title IX), increasing the responsibility/liability for corporate tax returns (Title X), and increasing the responsibility for corporate fraud and accountability (Title XI). There are several more provisions that comprise the act, but those mentioned are the “heavy hitters”...
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