• Donald Trump Faces Bondholder Battle in Bid to Reclaim Casinos – Our advice: Don’t mess with this hair ego man. [Bloomberg]
• ADP Says U.S. Companies Decreased Payrolls by 371,000 – The trend of lesser bad news continues. [Bloomberg]
• Banks Get Picky In Doling Out Credit Cards – Postal workers rejoice. [WSJ]
• Chinese survey finds prostitutes more trusted than officials – More bang for your buck. [The Raw Story via Naked Capitalism]
Related Posts
Deloitte to Squash Ratings?
- Caleb Newquist
- July 31, 2009
Following up on yesterday’s post on KPMG’s slashing of ratings, we checked with a source that gave us the lowdown on the rating system at Deloitte:
“From what I heard, all of the 4s and 5s have already been shown the door. D&T is known to suppress ratings, so I doubt that there will be a lot of 1s or even 2s this year.”
So we asked them to elaborate on “suppress ratings”:
Get the details, after the jump
Your Senior and your manager will give you a rating. Lets say that you are good and they give you a 2. They will need to justify this rating to the entire firm when they have the review meeting (I forget the exact name). Since every Senior thinks that their staff is the shit, a lot of the 2s tend to get pushed down to 3s because if everyone is performing at a higher level, then that is the average. Then, they have a limited number of 2s to fight over…2s get paid more and I think that they get some kind of performance bonus. So they have an incentive to limit the number of 2s given out every year.
Sound familiar to anyone? Discuss.
We’re smack in the middle of performance review time so email us any shady changes, adjustments, throwing people under the bus, etc. going down to tips@goingconcern.com
Ex-Deloitte Partner, Son To Shell Out $1.1 Million to Settle SEC Insider Trading Charges
- Caleb Newquist
- August 4, 2010
Last we had heard of Thomas Flanagan, Deloitte had just taken him to the woodshed, successfully suing him for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and breach of contract related to Tom’s insider trading activities of Deloitte clients.
Now it’s the SEC’s turn to get in on this sweet action. The Commission charged Flanagan and his son, Patrick Flanagan for insider trading of Deloitte clients including Best Buy, Sears, Walgreens and Motorola.
Why Flanagan, the 38-year veteran of Deloitte and Vice Chairman of Clients and Markets, who thought that in the twilight of his career, the best move would be to engage in some insider trading is still a mystery. Since he was presumably pushing 60, one couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps his memory was going and he just totally spaced the independence thing.
But actually, no. Turns out, Tom Flanagan is just a liar:
According to the SEC’s complaint, Thomas Flanagan concealed his trades in the securities of Deloitte’s clients and circumvented Deloitte’s independence controls. He failed to report the prohibited trades to Deloitte, lied to Deloitte about his compliance with its independence policies, and provided false information to Deloitte’s personal income tax preparers about the identity of the companies whose securities he traded.
Flanagan & Son will be paying over $1.1 million in disgorgement and fines for their little stunt. And Robert Khuzhami had a little reminder for anyone else out there that thinks they can get cute, “Flanagan’s insider trading violated one of the most fundamental rules of public accounting. All audit firms should learn from this unfortunate episode and employ vigorous controls designed to ensure compliance with the SEC’s auditor independence rules.”
SEC Charges Former Deloitte Partner and Son With Insider Trading [SEC Press Release]
SEC Complaint Against Thomas Flanagan and Patrick Flanagan [SEC Complaint]
#TBT: In Case You Hadn’t Heard, PwC Has Been Counting Oscar Ballots for Awhile
- Caleb Newquist
- February 12, 2015
Did you know? Harold Brewster was 1st #PwC balloting leader 1935-41 (seated, left) http://t.co/vXVGPTRFPk #Oscars […]