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Ryan McConnell talks to Compliance Week about Goldman's CCO Responsibilities
08/03/2010
Corporate America has been buzzing about Goldman Sachs’ recent settlement of fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for all sorts of reasons. One provision in particular, however, should make compliance executives take notice: the SEC’s insistence that Goldman’s top compliance officer certify the Wall Street bank’s good behavior.
Ryan McConnell, a former federal prosecutor now with the law firm Haynes and Boone, says the CCO certification is “an interesting alternative” to a government-appointed monitor. The SEC has always focused on “gatekeepers” in the financial markets, such as auditors, accountants, or investment bankers in the financial markets, he says. If you view the CCO as a gatekeeper for corporate compliance, “this makes perfect sense.”
Relying on the CCO, who runs the compliance program and knows the company better than an outside monitor, also blunts criticisms that monitors can have a conflict of interest in the companies they oversee and run up unnecessarily high bills, McConnell says.
Excerpted from Compliance Week. To view the full article, click here. (Subscription required.)