Friday, November 24, 2017

Rising to the risk: Cybersecurity top concern of corporate counsel



CHINA has told Australia to butt out of the South China Sea dispute after the government expressed “concern” over its trading partner’s provocative actions...

“Australia is particularly concerned by the unprecedented pace and scale of China’s activities,” the white paper states.
Management of Australia's strategic risk becoming more demanding

Banking royal commission 'very dangerous'


Eighteen months since the Panama Papers sparked worldwide controversy around the use of offshore companies, another major leak of documents has lifted the lid on the methods used to keep wealth hidden behind a veil of secrecy.
To understand how to mitigate the associated risks, listen to the special Thomson Reuters webinars from 9 November – Asia timezone OR Europe timezone.
Through the Paradise Papers, which contain more than 1,400GB of data and about 13.4 million documents, it is possible to see into the complex structures of trusts, foundations and shell companies going back seven decades.


Florida Tax Review (2015)





Emily Ann Satterthwaite (Toronto), Can Audits Encourage Tax Evasion?: An Experimental Assessment, 20 Fla. Tax Rev. 1 (2016):
Governments and tax administrators around the world rely on the premise that random audits can be used to reduce tax evasion through two channels of deterrence: first, the ex ante indirect threat of audit will induce taxpayers to truthfully report their income and, second, that the lived experience of audit will deter audited taxpayers from cheating in the future (“direct deterrence,” Alm et al. 2009). This paper provides original experimental evidence of the failure of the direct deterrence channel. Contrary to the predictions of the standard economic model of tax compliance, I find that random audits are ineffective in fostering higher post-audit levels of compliance. Surprisingly, they induce experiment participants to cheat more in the tax periods after the audit (the “bomb crater” effect).


Read My LipsVanessa S. Williamson (Brookings Institution) presents Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes (Princeton University Press 2017) at Columbia today as part of its Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium Series hosted by Alex Raskolnikov and Wojciech Kopczuk:

Conventional wisdom holds that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Bringing together national survey data with in-depth interviews, Read My Lips presents a surprising picture of tax attitudes in the United States. Vanessa Williamson demonstrates that Americans view taxpaying as a civic responsibility and a moral obligation. But they worry that others are shirking their duties, in part because the experience of taxpaying misleads Americans about who pays taxes and how much. Perceived "loopholes" convince many income tax filers that a flat tax might actually raise taxes on the rich, and the relative invisibility of the sales and payroll taxes encourages many to underestimate the sizable tax contributions made by poor and working people.

Americans see being a taxpayer as a role worthy of pride and respect, a sign that one is a contributing member of the community and the nation. For this reason, the belief that many Americans are not paying their share is deeply corrosive to the social fabric. The widespread misperception that immigrants, the poor, and working-class families pay little or no taxes substantially reduces public support for progressive spending programs and undercuts the political standing of low-income people. At the same time, the belief that the wealthy pay less than their share diminishes confidence that the political process represents most people.

The Paradise Papers show accountancy firms are engaged in wilful and organised hypocrisy  (21 Nov 2017)

"Why Are Corruption Cases Crumbling? Some Blame the Supreme Court." Alan Feuer has this front page article in today's edition of The New York Times.

7 lessons from the ANZSOG case library.
If your job involved poring over the best and the worst of government, you’d probably pick up a few things. Marinella Padula has done just that and identified the top lessons for program leadership, design and evaluation.

"Risk management is not just a compliance exercise but an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. More than ever, legal departments are playing a significant role in managing risk and monitoring its effectiveness, especially in the critical area of cybersecurity. Grant Thornton and Corporate Counselmagazine recently surveyed over 190 corporate general counsel to assess their views on the keys to business growth. The topics ranged from regulatory risk management and risk assessments to cybersecurity and data analytics. Below are a sampling of insights from Grant Thornton’s 2017 Corporate General Counsel Survey:

  • 58% of legal departments are highly involved in responding to data security risks; nearly a quarter have primary responsibility for the issue
  • Less than a quarter of counsel are very satisfied with their organizaton’s risk assessment
  • Nearly three-quarters of legal departments cite cyber issues as a top risk.
  • Of those very concerned about data security, only about a third feel adequately prepared

As a result of increasing risk concerns, the role of the corporate general counsel continues to evolve to include new, important areas of focus and responsibilities.  While maintaining a firm handle on the traditional functions of the legal department, the survey reveals that their role is increasingly concerned with regulation and compliance, as well as data privacy and related cybersecurity issues.”

 The changing landscape of crowdfunding in Australia
When Aussie start-up, Nura, wanted to raise funds to help launch its hi-tech, self-adjusting headphones onto the global market, it turned to crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. The ground-breaking Nuraphones attracted the support of over 7,000 ‘backers’ who pledged money in return for early access to the product, netting Nura over US$1.8 million and breaking records for an Australian crowd-funding campaign
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