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Regulatory Compliance |
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Documentation Leads to Compliance In Canada: Securities regulators in Canada released three new rules to address investor confidence and uphold the reputation of Canada’s capital markets. In Canada the National Instrument 52-108 has been adopted in all Canadian jurisdictions. 52-109 Certification of Issuers' Annual and Interim Filings and 52-110 Audit Committees have been adopted in every Canadian jurisdiction except British Columbia. These new Canadian rules took effect March 30, 2004. Documentation Leads to Compliance In the U.S.A:
Senior executives face two major problems when attempting to achieve compliance. First, compliance is never clear - there are multiple interpretations of each regulation and regulatory agencies continuously announce new guidelines. Second, for senior executives to achieve compliance both the letter and spirit of adherence must become part of the entire corporation's operations and management culture. The Act-which applies in general to publicly held companies and their audit firms-dramatically affects also the accounting profession and impacts not just the largest accounting firms, but any CPA actively working as an auditor of, or for, a publicly traded company. According to a July 2, 2003 Price Waterhouse Coopers' survey:
As the requirements for achieving SOX compliance continue to unfold, senior executive recognize that there are three major, continuing challenges that they must effectively manage. First, they must assure that subsidiary, divisional (including overseas divisions), departmental and other data feeding into their corporate financial accounting system is accurate (Section 302). Second, they must accurately report on the effectiveness of their internal control systems (Section 404). Third, they must report "on a rapid and current basis" events that might result in material changes to the financial condition of the corporation. The time between when an event occurs (such as the loss of electrical power at the firm's major manufacturing and distribution facilities) and when a company is required to report the projected financial impact may be 48 hours - or it may be 15 days, the requirement is not yet clear (Section 409). And because a company's CEO and CFO must prepare a statement certifying financial statements and disclosures, it is imperative that they both can show that they have personally led, directed, and thoroughly reviewed the work efforts required to achieve SOX compliance. According to a July 2, 2003 Price Waterhouse Coopers' survey:
How VIGIE™ Can Help VIGIE™ can significantly assist senior executives in achieving Corporate Governance in five key areas.
For Legal and Compliance Departments With the issuance of a new business regulation or passage of a new commercial law, it is the responsibility of a corporation's legal staff, often assisted by outside experts, to analyze the potential impact on how the enterprise conducts business. This often results in the requirement to issue new guidelines and policies for conducting business. Most importantly, the legal department must take all reasonable steps to ensure that these new corporate responsibilities are communicated to and reviewed by the appropriate executives throughout the organization. VIGIE™ has a formal process for allowing the legal department to initiate the review process and track time-mandated executive responses to ensure that the enterprise can attest to the fact that it has effectively communicated compliance requirements throughout the organization. VIGIE™ Provides Secure Collaboration Anybody who can surf the Internet and use e-mail can masterVIGIE™.VIGIE™ encourages and allows senior executive involvement to a greater degree than any other enterprise-level management tool available today. VIGIE™ provides a comprehensive set of security features. Each authorized user must have a password to enter the system and all his or her actions are recorded in an activity log. To ensure that each user only sees that part of the initiative, which is appropriate, the initiative leader may limit a user's access rights to specific issues. You can download this Regulatory Compliance document in a PDF format.
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