From the category archives:

OSC

Bre-X: The Fraud without a Fraudster

July 31, 2007

The Centre for Corporate & Public Governance has issued a statement on the stunning acquittal of former Bre-X executive John Felderhof. As the statement notes: In the time it took to charge and try John Felderhof, the lone defendant in the Bre-X case, the scandals of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Computer Associates and dozens more came [...]

Read the full article →

Kudo of the Week: SEC Trumps OSC Over Nortel Penalty

June 8, 2007

Once again, the SEC has done the heavy lifting for Canadian investors by imposing, according to reports, a $100 million penalty on Nortel. Indeed, nothing could more graphically illustrate the contrast in approach toward the protection of the capital markets between the SEC and the OSC than this decision. For exactly the same kind of [...]

Read the full article →

OSC Hits Nortel With a Wet Noodle

May 23, 2007

        Today’s Financial Post has some comments from me on yesterday’s settlement between the Ontario Securities Commission and Nortel Networks. Peter Brieger does a good job setting out the background. Like many things the OSC has done lately, some of which we have commented on before, this one leaves us wondering if [...]

Read the full article →

Melnyk’s Resignation from Biovail: When the SEC Comes Knocking at Your Door it Tends to Concentrate the Mind

May 17, 2007

I had an interview with Peter Brieger yesterday about the sudden resignation of Biovail head Eugene Melnyk. It’s in today’s Financial Post. Mr. Melnyk’s is a familiar story where a dynamic entrepreneur founds a company, does well, tends to dominate its affairs and places less emphasis on the checks and balances of sound corporate governance [...]

Read the full article →

New Message in RIM’s Inbox: U.S. Prosecutor Calling

April 27, 2007

We predicted last year there would be more surprises in connection with RIM’s backdating scandal. We have been following those developments regularly at Finlay ON Governance, with an admitted degree of skepticism. Most of the time it seemed we were the only ones to be doing so, as so many reporters, analysts and investors appeared [...]

Read the full article →

SEC Not Buying RIM’s Options Backdating Story

April 12, 2007

There are too many unanswered questions and inconsistent statements for anything less than a formal investigation by the U.S. regulator. It is another example of how Canada’s OSC has dropped the ball. There is a lesson for companies conducting internal investigations that are to be reviewed by securities regulators. When writing the report, don’t do [...]

Read the full article →

Memo to OSC: Get On With It or Get Another Line of Work

April 10, 2007

With 90 OSC employees making more than the chairman of the SEC, it’s time to look at the Ontario securities regulator’s performance and accountability Its chair and just one of its vice-chairs together make more than all five members of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission combined, including SEC chairman Christopher Cox. Yet the Ontario [...]

Read the full article →

Defining Nortel: Accusations of Accounting Fraud and a Continuing Fog of Accounting Restatements

March 14, 2007

Not to be lost in the recent accusations of accounting fraud involving former top management of Nortel is the fog that company’s financial statements continue to produce. With its fourth restatement announced two weeks ago —the fourth in four years— Nortel landed firmly in the record books. No publicly traded company has ever had as [...]

Read the full article →

This Week It’s the Nortel Scandal

March 12, 2007

Scandals are real time drainers. Last week, it was the stock options backdating mess at RIM. This week, and it’s only Monday, I’ve spent a lot of time answering press inquiries about the SEC’s charges against Nortel announced this morning. And I’m actually on vacation. The Centre for Corporate & Public Governance has a statement [...]

Read the full article →