Governance, Risk Management, Internal Control, and Compliance (GRC) activities are often enabled by a patchwork of manual processes and virtual paperwork in the form of uncontrolled documents and spreadsheets. GRC is the way to start addressing current and upcoming issues.

Success of the GRC efforts on the other hand, is dependent on the creativity, drive, and productivity of the GRC staff and the IT tools. GRC efforts are magnified in the current environment where we can expect more oversight and regulations. The conference focuses on establishing Good Governance, implement Enterprise Risk Management (instead of silos), implement sustainable Compliance programs.

Read five reasons why you must attend - and reserve your place at the Copenhagen Compliance Conference without delay.

In this volatile global economy, there is great need for risk professionals to come together and discuss the latest, ever changing industry challenges. Featuring the risk profession’s top thought leaders and risk practitioners, our European Risk Congress is designed to give insight into how others are approaching many of the same issues that risk professionals are grappling with every day.

As a Eurosox newsletter subscriber, you’re eligible for the exclusive offer of £249 for the 2-Day Congress & £149 for Workshops.

GARP is the Global Association of Risk Professionals.

It is now that management can provide guidance to the organization and employees on behavior and corporate priorities in the event of a disaster that follows a pandemic situation caused by the Swine flu.

Issues such as pandemic planning are also a part of management responsibilities in the Risk Assessment and the Business Continuity Planning process of the enterprise. Depending on the geographical location many companies have already taken action to implement their pandemic plans. Here are a few suggestions for updating the plans Action Plans.

The European Commission proposed a draft law this week (18/2009) that would make it mandatory for hedge funds to register and disclose information on leverage to supervisors if they want to operate in the EU. EU countries are divided on this issue. Britain, the European Union's hedge fund capital, fears overly stringent regulation, while France is a keen backer of tighter regulation. Denmark’s ex Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is one of the eminences behind the demand for more regulation for Hedge Funds.

Compliance departments often wrestle with two challenges: they face enormous pressure to reduce costs, while simultaneously facing the need to comply with the regulatory requirements to combat money laundering.

Bonuses especially in the financial services industry have caught a great deal of attention in the current post bailout economy. Entertainment or gift giving has not created any headlines on lavish expenses, probably because managers and employees have learnt that it’s advisable to have restrained behavior as the lavishness is often prone to ‘jealousy’.

The de Larosière group’s proposal on creating a financial market supervision and regulation oversight board, probably represents an essential step forward towards creating a European oversight board from scratch. Furthermore it is also a test of the commission’s ability, courage and conviction in this respect. The challenge to agree and implement the proposals, and to do so in the timeline proposed by de Larosière.

The goal of any organization’s ethics and compliance program is to develop an effective program for the detection of potential misconduct. Each investigation must be tailored to the issue presented, after consulting with internal or external counsel, this basic framework should help the compliance professional in conducting an investigation.

At a recent power lunch arranged by the British Chamber of Commerce at the SAS Royal Hotel, CEO Lars Rohde of ATP summarized the current crisis under the heading, "Greed, Governance and Greenspan. Earlier this week Microsoft Denmark held a CFO conference with focus on Risk Management.

The quality and quantity of overall capital in the global banking system should be increased, resulting in minimum regulatory requirements significantly above existing Basel rules. The transition to future rules should be carefully phased given the importance of maintaining bank lending in the current macroeconomic climate. is one of the recommendations in the Turner Review.

On March 19, 2009, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) published their preliminary views on lease accounting in a joint discussion paper. The discussion paper, Leases: Preliminary Views is issued in response to concerns raised by investors and other users of financial statements regarding the treatment of lease contracts under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP).

A number of regulatory and accounting issues related to Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) have emerged in the wake of the current global financial turmoil. An important question is particularly related to the problems concerning the soaring price of crude oil as in 2008 and the lack of risk management of accounting and balance sheet items in banks and other financial institutions.

Please read the following blogs

Grådighed, Governance og Greenspan set med Risikostyringsbriller

Kan vi huske olieprisen på $ 150?

Er moderniseringen af den danske selskabslov på vej til at kuldsejle?

There was so much on the plate of the current newsletter that we defer this article for the next newsletter. When everything else fails we suggest the use the following GRC checklist framework to help you survive the current crisis: We present a 10 point plan on how to reenergize the GRC strategy and a GRC Checklist.