Financial Transparency Coalition

Over the last decade or so, investment banks have chronically put their profits ahead of the interests of the community. Take Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, that sold complex financial structures en masse, which helped spread toxic mortgages throughout the financial system. In 2008 our financial system nearly collapsed, in large part because of these toxic mortgages. Goldman Sachs actually profited from that meltdown, by putting millions of dollars into a subprime mortgage deal in 2007. Soon after that little stunt, the firm paid a settlement fine of $550 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for charges...

It’s a question that many in the compliance industry ask: why can’t the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission give crystal clear guidance on what a proper compliance program should look like?

NEW YORK – Even as anger over governmental corruption has exploded into protests across the Middle East, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been working to weaken the law that bans companies from bribing foreign officials.

This year's International Anti-Corruption Day is marred by a U.S. Chamber of Commerce attempt to weaken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), our nation's flagship anti-corruption legislation. Passed in 1977, the FCPA was a response to eroded public trust in government following the Watergate scandal and the admission by Lockheed and some 400 other American companies that bribery to foreign officials was a commonplace practice in international commerce. The U.S. FCPA stood virtually alone on the global stage in the fight against corruption until the late 1990s, when other...