See on Scoop.it – Tate – Law, Liability, Risk Management, Governance, D&O and Business

What Nonprofit Boards Are Not Doing – But Should! A 2013 Top Post With 681 Viewers! By Eugene Fram A recent New York Times article* reports that public company directors are coming under scrutiny t…

See on non-profit-management-dr-fram.com

See on Scoop.it – Tate – Law, Liability, Risk Management, Governance, D&O and Business

Complete ISO 31000 2009 risk management dictionary. All ISO 31000 risk management definitions translated into plain English.

See on praxiom.com

See on Scoop.it – Tate – Law, Liability, Risk Management, Governance, D&O and Business

Complete ISO 31000 2009 risk management dictionary. All ISO 31000 risk management definitions translated into plain English.

See on praxiom.com

From Aon, cyber risk diagnostic tool, click here.

Enjoy.  Dave Tate, Esq. (San Francisco and California)

See on Scoop.it – Tate’s Law, Liability, Risk Management, Governance, D&O & Business

A poor response can be far more damaging than the attack itself. A McKinsey & Company article.

See on www.mckinsey.com

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could be a board or board committee member without worry or concern? Well . . . you can’t unless you are oblivious to issues and risks, but of course you can and should endeavor to be proactive and ahead of the game; spot, obtain needed information about and deal with issues; interact with others, not in a silo; and make prudent decisions.

I have seen an article that ISS has recommended that 7 of 10 Target board members should go, at least in part because of the massive data breach that Target suffered last year. Here is a link to the story, click here.

If they weren’t already, perhaps now catastrophic incidents will result in a call for board member ouster. That’s not an easy decision to make, of course, and should be made on a case by case and person by person basis. What if the director in question brings a lot more to the table that would be lost and difficult to replace if ousted? Directors are responsible for risk management and opportunity oversight, but not day-to-day operations. And serious incidents can happen even with diligent oversight, including intentionally caused incidents like computer hacking. What  about ouster for environmental incidents? What about ouster for product design and manufacturing incidents? What about ouster for perceived inadequate risk management or internal control processes?  You get the point.

Clearly if you are a board member, and if you are a board risk committee member, you have ultimate risk oversight responsibilities. What if you are an audit committee member and your audit committee has been delegated risk management oversight? Audit committee members already have significant and time consuming oversight responsibilities for accounting and financial records, foreign corrupt practices act compliance, oversight of the independent outside audit and auditor, and financial internal controls. If your audit committee charter, you do have a charter, right, delegates to you risk management responsibilities, you had better be sure that the charter specifies which responsibilities, i.e., accounting, financial, audit, FCPA, and internal controls, or more, such as general overall broad risk management, that you do have and don’t have, and that you believe that you are qualified and able to satisfy those oversight responsibilities.

Dave Tate, Esq. (San Francisco and California)

All I can say is that greater transparency, disclosure and accounting for all current and future governmental entity benefit liabilities should have already been required long ago.  Click on the following link for the discussion. GASB Proposes Improvements in Reporting Health Insurance and Other Retiree Benefits.

Dave Tate, Esq. (San Francisco and California)

This new revenue recognition standard has been in the works for a long time. For the FASB it represents a return to a more principles-based approach, which in some ways is a return to the past when accounting rules were more principles-based. Over time the principles gave way to ever-increasing specific rules as it was believed that the principles did not provide sufficiently specific guidance. The new rules will require accountants, financial professionals and analysts, executive and financial officers, audit committee members and perhaps board members to go back to school. In addition to the return to a more principles-based approach, the new standards will bring new and probably increased disclosure requirements. At this point the disclosure requirements appear particularly vague; however, that belief may well change after additional study. The following is a link to a Journal of Accountancy news release, which also contains additional links, FASB, IASB release historic revenue recognition standard.

Dave Tate, Esq. (San Francisco and California)

California Probate Code Section 16013 states that if a trust has more than one trustee, each trustee has a duty to (a) participate in the administration of the trust, and (b) take reasonable steps to prevent a co-trustee from committing a breach of trust or to compel a co-trustee to redress a breach of trust.

In other words, except possibly in a circumstances where the terms of the trust provide otherwise, co- and multiple trustees need to sufficiently get along and make decisions with which they both or all agree as the case might be.  This can be accomplished, of course, but co- and multiple trustee situations also can create challenges and difficulties, and work better when communications are good with proper demeanor.  If you are in a co- or multiple trustee situation you need to act accordingly.

Dave Tate, Esq., San Francisco and California

The following link to the Canada Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions provides a helpful and useful discussion and checklist for cyber security evaluation, Cyber Security Self-Assessment Guidance.

Enjoy. Dave Tate, Esq., San Francisco and California