Traditional whistleblower hotlines are going to be a thing of the past. They certainly served a purpose and pioneered a way for employees to report wrongdoing at their companies confidentially. But the reasons are stacking up against them as to why they’re no longer serving companies and employees in 2021. And if companies continue to use them, they need to realize that issues or concerns may go unreported because employees don’t want to use that channel to report.
Compliance Trends
TOKYO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - A former Tokyo Olympics official arrested on bribery charges was granted bail on Monday, public broadcaster NHK reported. A Tokyo District court set bail for Haruyuki Takahashi at 80 million yen ($603,000), NHK reported.
Prosecutors have raided multiple companies in recent months in a widening corruption scandal related to the Tokyo Games.
The Spanish company Maxam Ghana Limited in charge of a truck that exploded and killed 13 people at Apeatse in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality of the Western Region has been fined $6 million for regulatory breaches regarding the manufacture, storage, and transportation of explosives for mining and other civil works.
In a press statement on Tuesday signed by the Lands Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, The breaches were identified by a three-member committee set up by the government to investigate the explosion that occurred at Apeatse.
Belgian prosecutors investigating allegations that Qatar has sought to influence EU policy by bribing European parliament officials have charged four people with money laundering, corruption and participating in a criminal organisation.
The charges, which were announced on Sunday, came two days after police arrested four people and seized computers, mobile phones and €600,000 (£515,000) in cash during searches at 16 properties across Brussels
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More than 150,000 people in Chad have been helped with lifesaving UK aid, including emergency food supplies, funded by £4.4 million recovered in a corruption case by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
The money was recovered from a series of corrupt transactions involving personnel and companies connected to staff at the Chadian Embassy in Washington, United States, and was the first time the UK has agreed to channel money from a civil corruption case into critical global aid projects.
The funding has gone to support vulnerable people in Chad - which has one of the highest levels of hunger in the world - with food rations, cash assistance and medical support.
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - KPMG faces a 14.4 million pound ($17.6 million) fine after admitting it misled regulators during spot checks on audits of construction group Carillion and software firm Regenersis.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the British auditing regulator, told a London tribunal on Thursday that it was seeking a record 20 million pound fine, reduced to 14.4 million pounds because KPMG self-reported and cooperated.
"It was unjustifiable and wrong," KPMG's Chief Executive Jon Holt said in a statement, adding: "It was a violation of our processes and a betrayal of our values."
Ernst & Young, one of the top accounting firms in the world, is being fined $100 million by federal regulators after admitting its employees cheated on their ethics exams.
For years, the firm's auditors had cheated to pass key exams that are needed for certified public accountant licenses, the Securities and Exchange Commission found. Ernst & Young also had internal reports about the cheating but didn't disclose the wrongdoing to regulators during the investigation.
"It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things," Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, said in a release.
The fine is the largest penalty ever imposed by the SEC on an audit firm.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday obtained final judgment against a former Goldman Sachs executive charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by orchestrating a bribery scheme to help a client win a power plant contract in the Republic of Ghana.
Asante Berko will disgorge $275,000 in ill-gotten gains, plus approximately $54,000 in prejudgment interest. He neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings. Though the SEC does not name Goldman Sachs in any of its filings, Berko’s past as a former executive at the bank’s London subsidiary has been widely reported. Read More
Amid an unprecedented year, the World Bank Group concluded 18 settlement agreements in fiscal year 2021 with companies or individuals who participated in World Bank-financed operations across 13 countries. The final three of these settlements, which resolve matters of sanctionable misconduct, were announced today.
Each of today’s announced settlement agreements highlights aspects of the World Bank Group’s efforts to promote higher integrity standards in Bank Group-financed projects. Read more
Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp was ordered to pay a 225 million-euro ($266 million) penalty for failing to be transparent about how it handled personal information, its first fine under beefed-up European Union data protection law.
The Irish Data Protection Commission — Silicon Valley’s main privacy watchdog in Europe — said it found violations in the way WhatsApp explained how it processed users’ and non-users’ data, as well as how data was shared between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies. Read More
Email-linked threats and data breaches are considered to be the most serious cyber security threats to businesses in Africa, most notably to those in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
This is according to Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which released the findings of its Cyber Security Report 2021 today. In an overview of the threat landscape across these markets, South African and Zimbabwean businesses have indicated that email threats – specifically ransomware and malware – is a major threat, while their Kenyan counterparts have singled out data breaches. Read More
In mid-September, the UN announced that all Gabonese military units deployed to the CAR were being immediately repatriated following credible reports of alleged abuse of five girls.
“Since the allegations came to light, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Gabonese authorities have collected evidence which, we understand, would allow the Gabonese authorities to complete their national investigation and inform us of its outcome,” said Mr. Haq.
Pinterest on Wednesday(Nov. 24, 2021) settled a shareholder lawsuit alleging that top executives enabled a culture of discrimination.
Financial details of the settlement between Pinterest, a popular social media platform for sharing images, and the shareholder, the Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island, were not shared publicly. As part of the agreement, the company is releasing former employees from nondisclosure agreements in cases of racial or gender-based discrimination.
She's the first African-American woman to lead an NBA team and says she better not be the last. More than a year after being tapped as CEO of the embattled Dallas Mavericks, Cynthia Marshall says she has turned around the organization's culture and has greatly diversified its top ranks.
Marshall was hired by owner Mark Cuban last year to transform the Mavericks after Sports Illustrated exposed a "corrosive workplace culture" at the organization.
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A new data protection law in Kenya is setting a high standard for the rest of the continent.
As the country looks to engender more safeguards in the collection, handling and sharing of data, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has approved legislation which complies with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.