WhistleBlower Security - Blog

Scotts MiracleGro to pay big fine

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:24:40 -0700

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay a record $12.5 million in penalties for illegally using insecticides on its wild bird food products, U.S. prosecutors say.

The Ohio maker of pesticides for commercial and consumer lawn and garden uses was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Columbus to pay a record $4 million fine and perform community service for 11 criminal violations of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the U.S. Justice Department said in a release on its Web site.

Separately, Scotts reached a civil agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under which it will pay record penalties of more than $6 million and spend $2 million on environmental projects to settle additional civil pesticide violations.

Scotts pleaded guilty in February to illegally applying insecticides that are toxic to birds, falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels, and distributing unregistered pesticides.

The civil settlement involved distributing or selling unregistered, canceled or misbranded pesticides, including products with inadequate warnings or cautions.

"As the world's largest marketer of residential use pesticides, Scotts has a special obligation to make certain that it observes the laws governing the sale and use of its products," Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division of the Department of Justice. "For having failed to do so, Scotts has been sentenced to pay the largest fine in the history of FIFRA enforcement."

Scotts said it applied the pesticides Actellic 5E and Storcide II to its bird food products even though EPA had prohibited this use. Scotts had done so to protect its bird foods from insect infestation during storage.

By the time it voluntarily recalled these products in March 2008, Scotts had sold more than 70 million units of bird food illegally treated with pesticide that is toxic to birds, the Justice Department said.

Scotts admitted submitting false documents to EPA and state regulatory agencies regarding pesticides it used. READ MORE...

Law and Ethics Seminar

APEGBC — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:28:02 -0700

Law and Ethics Seminar

All applicants for registration as professional engineers, professional geoscientists or limited licence in British Columbia are required to complete the Law and Ethics program. This requirement may be met in one of two ways:

1. by attending the Law & Ethics seminar in person (please see registration options below); or

2. by purchasing and viewing the CD version of the Law & Ethics seminar. Upon completion, the candidate must sign a declaration that he/she has viewed the contents of the CD set in their entirety. For more information or to purchase the CD-Rom, please click here

The Law & Ethics FAQ provides more information on the requirement to complete the Law and Ethics program for professional registration. Please note that registering for the Law & Ethics Seminar will not automatically register you for the Professional Practice Exam.

For more information about the exam, textbooks, registration process or to register for the exam, please contact our Registration department or click here. The final date to register for the October 15, 2012 Professional Practice Exam is September 7, 2012.

Please note that this seminar is not a prepatory course for the Professional Practice Exam. For information on what to study for the exam, please visit: http://www.apeg.bc.ca/reg/ppe.html.

What Previous Participants Said About This Seminar:

"Very useful course, both as a study aid for the Professional Practice Exam and for my general knowledge as a future professional."

"Seminar was full of valuable information."

Good information, made me aware of the issues we should be thinking about in our practice."

READ MORE...

Taxpayer watchdog group raises alarm over U of C chairs spending habits

BILL GRAVELAND — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:14:32 -0700

A taxpayers group is taking the University of Calgary to task for board expenses, including executive-class flights and $500-a-night hotel rooms, rung up by the chairman of the school’s board.

Doug Black, who is also a senator-in-waiting in Alberta, has repaid the university nearly $5,400 for airfare expenses the institution says were “processed in error.”

But Scott Hennig, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, is raising questions about the price of hotel rooms claimed as part of the $28,000 billed to the university and revealed through Freedom of Information laws.

“We got tipped off,” said Mr. Hennig in an interview from Edmonton. The tipster advised the group to compare Mr. Black’s and former board chair Jack Perraton’s expenses.

“It’s a trend of $300, $400 or $500 hotel rooms that (Black) stays in.”

Mr. Hennig said the University of Calgary’s travel expense procedure dictates that flights shorter than five hours must be economy class. Hotels are to be “standard room rates” and that travellers are to stay “where preferred or discount rates — or the equivalent of such rates — are available whenever possible.”

The claims show a $1,268.19 bill for a room at the Houston Four Seasons for two nights and another $1,261.71 from the Ritz Carleton for a two-night stay in Toronto.

Mr. Hennig said Mr. Perraton, who served as chair from April, 2007 through December 2010, claimed a total of $434.01 in expenses during his 3 1/2-year term. Mr. Black was appointed in February 2011.

No one was made available to speak on behalf of the University of Calgary. Requests made through the school to speak with Mr. Black were not answered.

The institution did issue a written release. It said the airfare mistake was identified in an audit done in June.

“The first quarterly audit review of the chair’s expenses, which commenced in June 2012, identified an error in payment to the chair, Doug Black. Specifically, the chair was reimbursed for business-class travel which fell outside of the university’s Hospitality and Travel Expenses Policy,” reads the release.

“The chair was informed of the error and he promptly reimbursed the University for the difference between business-class fares and the economy fares allowed for by university policy for all of his air travel since becoming chair.”

Mr. Hennig said the audit was done only after the University of Calgary received the freedom of information request.

Mr. Hennig thinks Mr. Black should have to repay back anything above the costs of a standard room at hotels like the Four Seasons in Houston and the Ritz Carleton in Toronto. He also questions the need for some of the expenses. READ MORE...

Inquiry on Tax Strategy Adds to Scrutiny of Finance Firms

NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, JULIE CRESWELL and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:40:21 -0700

The New York attorney general is investigating whether some of the nation’s biggest private equity firms have abused a tax strategy in order to slice hundreds of millions of dollars from their tax bills, according to executives with direct knowledge of the inquiry.

The attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has in recent weeks subpoenaed more than a dozen firms seeking documents that would reveal whether they converted certain management fees collected from their investors into fund investments, which are taxed at a far lower rate than ordinary income.

Among the firms to receive subpoenas are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president. Representatives for the firms declined to comment on the inquiry.

Mr. Schneiderman’s investigation will intensify scrutiny of an industry already bruised by the campaign season, as President Obama and the Democrats have sought to depict Mr. Romney through his long career in private equity as a businessman who dismantled companies and laid off workers while amassing a personal fortune estimated at $250 million.

Some executives at the firms said they feared that Mr. Schneiderman, a first-term Democrat with ties to the Obama administration, was seeking to embarrass the industry because of Mr. Romney’s roots at Bain. Others suggested that the subpoenas, which were issued by the attorney general’s Taxpayer Protection Bureau, might be part of an effort to recover more revenue for New York under state tax law. The attorney general’s office does not have the power to enforce federal tax laws.

A spokesman for Mr. Schneiderman declined to comment. READ MORE...

Developing Your Companys Ethics Policy

Small Business Notes — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:59:38 -0700

There are definite advantages to owning your own business when you are wanting to establish an ethics policy. You see, ethics come from the top. Without setting an example at the top, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to convince your employees that they too should be ethical in their business dealings. A well-defined ethics policy along with an outline of related standards of conduct provides the framework for ethical, moral behavior within your company.

What is the benefit to developing such a policy, you may be wondering. The benefit is higher employee morale and commitment which in most cases leads to higher profits. But higher profits should not be your motivating factor in defining your ethics policy.

An ethics policy should look at the bigger picture of how we relate to society as a whole and what our responsibility is to the greater good. Of course, in these days of downsizing and increasing change, some may argue that these ideals are unrealistic. However, it is important to note that most of the opponents of good ethics are focusing on short-term versus long-term results. Many organizations which have participated in the downsizing mania are beginning to realize that they have traded long-term employee morale and productivity for short-term profit margins.

The bottom line is "what goes around, comes around." If you treat your employees with disrespect and distrust, chances are they will do the same toward you.

When you are developing your ethics policy, you must decide what it is you want your company to stand for, put it in writing, and enforce it. According to Blanchard and Peale, you can base your policy on five fundamental principles:

Purpose.
A purpose combines both your vision as well as the values you would like to see upheld in your business. It comes from the top and outlines specifically what is considered acceptable as well as unacceptable in terms of conduct in your business.

Pride.
Pride builds dignity and self-respect. If employees are proud of where they work and what they are doing, they are much more apt to act in an ethical manner.

Patience.
Since you must focus on long-term versus short-term results, you must develop a certain degree of patience. Without it, you will become too frustrated and will be more tempted to choose unethical alternatives.

Persistence.
Persistence means standing by your word. It means being committed. If you are not committed to the ethics you have outlined, then they become worthless. Stand by your word.

Perspective.
In a world where there is never enough time to do everything we need or want to do, it is often difficult to maintain perspective. However, stopping and reflecting on where your business is headed, why you are headed that way, and how you are going to get there allows you to make the best decisions both in the short-term as well as the long-term.

A company policy is a reflection of the values deemed important to the business. As you develop your ethics policy, focus on what you would like the world to be like, not on what others tell you it is. READ MORE...

SEC Wont Propose Restrictions on HedgeFund Advertising

JESSICA HOLZER — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:53:51 -0700

WASHINGTON—The Securities and Exchange Commission is set Wednesday to propose allowing hedge funds and other businesses to mass market certain private stock offerings without restricting the advertising or spelling out how businesses must verify they are selling shares only to wealthy investors allowed to participate in the deals.

The plan is a win for the business community and for Republican lawmakers that had been concerned the SEC would move to reverse a decades-old ban on advertising the stock offerings while attaching restrictions they believed would essentially nullify the lifting of the ban.

Hedge funds and biotechnology firms, in particular, were worried the SEC would propose rules requiring people to supply tax returns and other personal documents to invest in the deals, arguing this would scare away potential investors.

Wednesday's proposal, which must be approved by the five-member commission, virtually assures the SEC won't move to attach these requirements.

The proposal is a step toward fulfilling a mandate of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS, Act passed in April that directed the SEC to reverse the advertising ban on the most common type of private offering as long as businesses take reasonable steps to verify they are selling only so-called "accredited investors" allowed to buy the shares. Accredited investors must meet certain lofty income or net worth tests. READ MORE...

Historic day for ACT Whistleblower Legislation

A J Brown — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:39:01 -0700

We are leading the way - now the federal govt must follow suit, A. J. BROWN writes

Sometimes, strange things happen in politics. Usually it is only in opposition that political parties champion meaningful reforms aimed at increased government openness, integrity and accountability. In the ACT Assembly yesterday, the priority given by the Gallagher government to new public interest disclosure or "whistleblowing" legislation, with the support of the ACT Greens, stands in sharp contrast.

As a result, ACT public servants and contractors will have new tailor-made rules aimed at ensuring they can speak up about wrongdoing or maladministration in government - within government, and if necessary, by going to the media.

Government is a hard business. Quite rightly, every government has to take responsibility for the things that can go wrong under its watch, even when those things are the results of budget pressures, economic change, ever-increasing community expectations and forces beyond their control.

But at the end of the day, the best and fastest way for wrongdoing and serious problems to be get identified early, is if the people "in the know" - the hard-working public servants inside organisations - are able to speak up.

The Gallagher government's Public Interest Disclosure Act replaces outdated 1994 legislation. It is historic legislation, improving on recent reforms in Queensland and NSW, and providing the country's clearest regime for ensuring public agencies listen to their people, take action to protect them, and "ensure just outcomes … including by preventing and remedying the effect of detrimental action".

It also extends the circumstances where, if systems are not in place to deal with wrongdoing raised via official channels, insiders can go to the media. Read more...

Lance Armstrong The Whistleblowers

Conal Urquhart and David Walsh — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:25:24 -0700

Three witnesses – who could have provided vital evidence if Lance Armstrong had mounted a defence – speak out

"I wrote four books about the guy. All the evidence was out there since 2004 and people will still say there is no evidence. To me there was a wilful conspiracy on the part of sporting officials, journalists, broadcasters, everybody. Now we see the fruits of it: high-level cycling has been destroyed by corruption.

"I would have preferred it if Lance Armstrong had gone to a tribunal and we would have had all the evidence out there. But he has decided to accept these charges because it was the lesser of two evils from his perspective.

"It is not good for him because he has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and has been given a lifetime ban. He has lost every victory he has had since 1998, but the alternative was even worse – to have a tribunal in which the evidence from 10 former team-mates who all say they saw him doping would have been aired in graphic detail.

"That detail would have portrayed Lance Armstrong as a doper. It would have opened the eyes of the public to what the US Anti-Doping Agency believe was one of the greatest, most sophisticated doping conspiracies in the history of sport.

"How did Armstrong get away with this for all these years? Who was complicit in helping him avoid detection? Because there is one certainty – he did not do this without help. Read more...

Legal protection for whistleblowers proposed in Dubai

Parag Deulgaonkar — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 12:07:39 -0700

Protection clause in draft code of Corporate Governance for Developers by Dubai Land Department

A protection clause for whistleblowers has been introduced in the draft code of Corporate Governance for Developers by the Dubai Land Department, Emirates24|7 can reveal.

As per the draft, the Audit Committee, which will be an integral part of the risk management process, will ensure a framework is in place by way of a policy (and procedures) which protects from discharge or discrimination against a whistle-blower, who may otherwise be subject to retaliation by the employers or fellow employees within the organisation to which they belong.

Defined by the draft code, whistleblowing is the action of person, usually an employee (the whistle-blower), in disclosing evidence of wrongdoing including fraud, financial irregularity, serious mal-administration arising from the deliberate commission of improper conduct, unethical activities, which may be of a criminal nature and dangerous acts or omissions, which create a risk to health, safety or the environment within the organisation to which they belong.

Although cases of whistleblowers are rarely reported in the Middle East, government entities and large private companies do have internal compliance programmes.

However, inclusion of a protective framework for whistleblowers may encourage employees in development companies to report wrongdoing to the authorities.

Over a dozen countries have now adopted comprehensive whistleblower protection laws which create mechanisms for reporting, investigate reports, and provide legal protections to the people who informed them. Read more...

Overseas Supply Chains What You Dont Know May Hurt You

Craig Mellow — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 11:57:47 -0700

Apple Inc. has no ownership stake in Foxconn, the giant contract electronics manufacturer with headquarters in Taiwan, no seat on the board, and no formal say over Foxconn’s labor policies. Yet Foxconn’s mounting public relations problems over the past two years have become Apple’s problems, nonetheless.

Foxconn’s transformation into a byword for worker abuse started in early 2010, when a dozen young employees killed themselves or tried to in rapid succession at two of the company’s plants in Shenzhen, China. The Scroogean image was cemented this March when the Washington-based Fair Labor Association (FLA) released a stinging report finding that nearly half the Foxconn workers it interviewed had witnessed a workplace accident, and the company had violated at least 43 different Chinese labor laws or regulations.

Along the way, media coverage attached Foxconn’s perceived sins to Apple, one of its major customers. Witness the January 2012 New York Times headline: “In China, Human Costs Are Built into an iPad.” The FLA report tarnished the halo that had settled over the Silicon Valley powerhouse after a triumphant series of product launches and the untimely death of founder Steve Jobs. It is hard to symbolize advancement and personal freedom, as Apple likes to, against a backdrop of such lurid news.

Singling out Apple was unquestionably selective journalistic justice. Foxconn’s 1.2 million employees churn out 40% of the world’s electronic components, according to the Times, and supply most of the industry’s household names, including Microsoft, Motorola, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Amazon. The spotlight settled on Apple at least partly because it was the one that pushed the FLA to investigate, a classic paradox of no good deed going unpunished.

But that is just the point for any board or management depending on an ever more complex and far-flung global supply chain: It could happen to you. Cynics will argue that the flap over Foxconn has done Apple no visible harm. iPhones and iPads continue to sell like hotcakes, and the company has surged to the world’s most valuable business, according to stock market price.

Yet few brands can feel as bulletproof as Apple these days. Other big-name multinationals have lost business over perceived abuses in plants or suppliers overseas, notably sportswear manufacturers deprived of lucrative college sponsorship deals. And none of us wants to wake up in the morning feeling that our day’s work led a young man to jump off a dormitory roof in a distant corner of the world.

For board members looking to ensure their company does not become the object of the next Foxconn, the bad news is that compliance does not come cheap. American clothing companies and retailers spend roughly $2 billion a year monitoring labor, safety, and environmental standards at suppliers around the world, estimates Julia Hughes, president of the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel (USA-ITA). Her industry has dealt with these issues the longest, for obvious reasons, and includes most of the companies activists cite as role models for ethical sourcing: Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc., and VF Corp. (makers of Wrangler, The North Face, JanSport), among others.

Nor is compliance straightforward. Despite some fervent backroom discussions, no agreement has yet emerged to offer a generally accepted good sourcing seal of approval that multinational brands can slap on their jeans or laptops. Rivalries among the various watchdog groups can be quite strident.

Apple is just the latest household name to reach out to the FLA as a fair arbiter after getting negative attention from labor advocates or the press. Executives from Adidas and Russell Athletic, which have both had run-ins with student and faculty groups over their on-campus sales, now sit on the FLA board. Yet this sort of cooperation makes the Fair Labor Association suspect in the eyes of harder-core outfits like the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) or Hong Kong-based Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), which helped pushed the Foxconn story into the global media.

Beneath this contentious surface, a plethora of mostly private firms compete for market share in the fast-growing social audit business, each of them naturally eager to undercut the credibility of all the others. The result is a babble of certifications and checkoffs that might prove unconvincing in the court of public opinion. “I fear that we are creating a cottage industry in falsified records around the world,” says Eric Olson, head of advisory services at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) in San Francisco. Read more...