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Control Chatter                                                   September 2019
News that Control Professionals Need to Know


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"FREE" VOCABULARY AND TERMS CATALOG
In This Issue
All New Internal Control online courses
Internal Control "Controlling".
ICI Announcements
Ericsson plans to take $1.23B hit for corruption fine
More Companies Putting Internal Audit in Charge of SOX
QCA's Updated Guidance for Audit Committees
Corporate Governance Lapses Key to Nissan's SEC Fines
SOX Doesn't Mean Secure
House Passes PCAOB Whistleblower Protection Act of 2019.
Inside the mind of a Fraudster.
Good corporate governance necessary for building trust
Data-measurement firm Comscore settles fraud charges
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 Internal Control online courses
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Start becoming an Internal Control professional today!
The ICI "Certification Series" has been completely updated and is available online to everyone around the world!  Course content prepares individuals to design and/or assess internal control and to assist management in installing internal control processes. In addition, the series prepares candidates for the Certified Internal Control Specialist (CICS) Examination.
To review the course catalog click here: ICI Course Catalog
To register for one or all of the online training programs click here:  
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Online course pricing has been reduced by over 70% 
Internal Control "Controlling"
By Michael Pregmon, Jr., Ph.D., CICP
COO and Managing Director
Dr. Michael Pregmon, Jr.
COO and Managing Director 
In the previous three editions of the  Internal Control Chatter newsletter, we reported the four essential things a good manager must accomplish. These are:
                                                               (P)lanning
                                                               (O)rganizing
                                                               (L)eading
                                                               (C)ontrolling
                                                   The POLC of management
 
In this edition, we will briefly introduce the (C) controlling activity essential for Internal Control  Managers. Obviously in this space we will be able to highlight only one of the more important activities of the internal control manager's involvements. Perhaps, this is a most important task from the organization's standpoint.
 
The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) is recognized as the leading authority for the practice of internal control worldwide. It published the COSO Internal Control Framework which is highly regarded. This document emphasizes that internal control is everybody's responsibility in an organization. We realize the intent of this statement in the Framework to infer that internal control is an individual responsibility. However, we also recognize if everybody is responsible for something, nobody is individually and specifically responsible for controlling that thing. This is where the internal control manager can play a key role in the enterprise.
 
In an earlier article when covering the (P)lanning activity, we suggested the internal control manager take a leading role for completing the risk assessment for the company. In this phase, an in-depth review of risk vulnerabilities by function/department is undertaken. The result of this exercise provides a list of key risk exposures that need to be managed. We stated that most companies typically cannot afford to prevent all risk vulnerabilities at 100%. As a result, the most pressing risks and those of highest vulnerabilities need to be closely controlled. Consequently, these need to be monitored regularly and should be periodically reviewed.
 
This control system can easily be accomplished with a reporting system monitored by the internal control manager. A monthly report of the single most costly or concerning risk from each department/function throughout the company would provide this assurance. In this respect, those risks with high vulnerabilities will be continually monitored to insure they are not overlooked and are properly managed. Don't get "caught" by surprise!

ICI ANNOUNCEMENTS
PARTNERS WANTED:  
HELP US IMPROVE INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE
The Internal Control Institute™ (ICI) improves organizational Internal Control worldwide by providing training, products and services and individual Professional Certifications recognized internationally. The Institute's Board of Advisors has determined it would like to further expand into areas where it is not directly represented. ICI provides world-class programs and its intellectual property to affiliates free of charge and shares all program revenue with them. If your organization is interested in partnering with ICI to earn revenue while you contribute to the development of the internal control profession worldwide please contact Dr. Michael Pregmon, Jr., Chief Operations Officer, by email at: mpregmon@internalcontrolinstitute.org or by phone at 727-538-4113   in the USA. 


WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST PARTNER 


ICI has entered into an agreement with  Business and Financial Consulting  company in  the Republic of Tunisia  (hereinafter referred to as "ICI BFC"  as its representative for Products, Services and Internal Control Certifications (CICS/CICP) in the Republic of Tunisia . ICI BFC will be responsible for all development activities in this area, including professional training and Certification.  Individuals or companies interested in internal control training or Certification should contact:
Contact: Nadia Yaich
E-Mail:   Nadia.yaich@bfc.com.tn


ICI Affiliate News:

The Internal Control Institute is conducting certification training in a classroom format for the internationally recognized CICS (Certified Internal Control Specialist) certification in internal control. Information on these programs regarding dates and schedules can be found on the Events tab on our Website or directed to the affiliate named below:

Botswana:
ICI has entered into an agreement with Internal Control Institute of Botswana (ICI Botswana":) as its representative for Products, Services and Internal Control Certifications (CICS/CICP) in this territory. ICI Botswana will be responsible for all development activities in this area, including professional training and Certification.  Individuals or companies interested in internal control training or Certification should contact:
Contact: Humphrey Chawafambira
E-Mail:  humphrey@internalcontrolinstitute.co.bw


Brazil:
Training Plans :

Belo Horizonte - October 14 to 18, 2019
Brasilia - November 25 to 29, 2019


For more details on planned training please on the website below, or send a message to Mr. Eduardo Person Pardini. Email:  eduardo@crossoverbrazil.com
Website: http://www.crossoverbrazil.com

China:  
  
CICS training programs were held in Hangzhou (September 5-8, 52 persons) , Beijing 
(September 18-21, 31 persons), Congratulations to all those who took part in the Certification programs.
Beijing CICS Training Class September 2019
Hangzhou CICS Training Class September 2019

The next scheduled training course will take place in Beijing, China from 20 to 23 November 2019

Individuals or companies interested in inter nal control training and Certification should contact:  
Mr. Qiu Jianting
CCSIT
Room 1039, Block A, Jinmao Building, No. 18, 
Xizhimenwai Street,
Xicheng District, Beijing, China
Zip Code: 100044
Mobile phone: 13810588109
Email:  
Cert@ neikon g.com
Website:  http://neikong.com/

Europe: 


Training Plans :

CICS Training in Dutch in Brussels, Belgium will take place in seven sessions over the period 4 October 2019 to 10 January 2020.  

For more information on scheduled training and exams please contact Mr.Yves Dupont of ICI Belgium at: 
Email  yves.dupont@icib.org
Website:  http://www.icib.org/
  
India
For more information on upcoming activities in this area please contact Mr. Summit Goyal of  ICI India at :
E-mail:  summit@broccoliandcarrots.com
Phone: +91 9810575613


Myanmar and Cambodia:
Better Business Governance - APAC PTE LTD (BBG) has become a representative for Products, Services and Internal Control Certifications (CICS/CICP) in Myanmar and Cambodia.  Better Business Governance will be responsible for all development activities, including professional training and Certification.  For more information on upcoming activities in this area please contact:
Better Business Governance
Mr. Sanjeev Gathani
1 Claymore Drive
#08-14, Orchard Towers (Rear Block)
Singapore 229594
E-mail:  sanjeev@bbg-apac.com
  
Mexico:
For more information on upcoming activities in this area please contact the following:
Antonio Salas Hernandez CICP,  Email:  ashicimexico@gmail.com 
Rafael Gonzalez Martinez, Email:  rgmicimexico@gmail.com
Joaquin Prendes Herrera, Email:  jphicimexico@gmail.com 

Middle East:
The CICS exam is now being  provided in Arabic.  Osool Training and Consulting has courses and testing available in Jordan, Libya, Muscat, Sudan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Palestine. 

Training Plan 2019
Certified Internal Control Specialist (CICS) Certification Preparation Programs are scheduled as follows:

Muscat, Oman - September 29 to 3 October 2019
Doha, Qatar - November 17 to 21, 2019
Dubai, UAE - December 15 to 19, 2019

Interested applicants in the region should contact Osool for scheduling for future programs.  For additional information on scheduled ICI Certification and program sessions, please contact:
Lina Salameh
Assistant General Manager
O SOOL for Training & Consulting
Mob Oman:  +968 95 98 98 20
Mob Jordan: +962 7 99589666
Tel:   +962 6 5927171 Ext. 107
Fax:  +962 6 5927172
E-mail: Lina@osooltc.com
Website:http://www.osooltc.com

Nigeria:  
Leadway Consulting conducts CICS training sessions and examinations in Nigeria. For more information on upcoming activities in Nigeria  please contact:
Mr.  Joel Aluko  tunjialuko5@yahoo.com


Pakistan:

For more information on activities in Pakistan individuals or companies should contact : Muhammad Farooq Hammodi
E-Mail: nardac_k@yahoo.com


Romania:






  • CICS Training Course to be held in Bucharest from 28 to 30 October 2019
  • CICS Examination to be held in Bucharest on 6 December 2019
     
For more information on activities in Romania contact : Cosmin Serbanescu at the National Institute for Internal Control in Romania.
Email:  contact@incir.ro
Tel:  + 40 752 525 525
Website:  www.institutuldecontrolintern.ro

 

Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan China:
ICI has entered into an agreement with GRC Consultancy Pte Ltd. (ICI Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan) as its representative for Products, Services and Internal Control Certifications (CICS/CICP) in those territories.  

Individuals or companies interested in internal control training or Certification should contact:
General enquiries for all 4 markets - bobseetoh@theglobalgrc.com
Singapore - Mr. Bob Seetoh - bobseetoh@theglobalgrc.com
Malaysia - Mr. Melvin Beh - melvinbeh@theglobalgrc.com
Indonesia -  Mr. Melvin Beh -  melvinbeh@theglobalgrc.com
Taiwan China - Mr. Bob Seetoh - bobseetoh@theglobalgrc.com

Turkey:

In July, ICI Turkey conduced a CICS training and a CICS exam for a small corporate group, ETİ Maden. 
 

  • CICS Training course to be held in Istanbul 28 and 29 September 2019 & 23 and 24 October 2019, followed by the CICS Exam on November 2nd
  • CICS training to a corporate group of 20 people in the banking sector in October
For detailed information on scheduled ICI Certification and program sessions, please contact ICI Turkey  below:
 

Ms. Ilknur Tunc,  VP - ilknur.tunc@iciturkey.org
Dr. Bertan Kaya -  bkaya@controlsolutions.com
Website:  http://iciturkey.org
GOP Mahallesi, İran Caddesi, Karum İs Merkezi
No:21, D Blok, 4. Kat, D:398-399
06700
Kavaklıdere/Çankaya/Ankara

+90 (312) 4425015 T
+90 (533) 4474444 D
 
Vietnam:
CICS examinations to be held in Vietnam: 

  19 December 2019

For more information on upcoming activities in Vietnam please contact: NGUYEN THANH TUNG (MBA. M.Eng, PhD.) Director, FMIT Institute of Financial Management & Information Technology,  Level 5 , 126 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, Ward 6, District 3, HCMC, Viet Nam
Office: 848 3803 5020 - 848 3512 9371 - 848 3512 7652
Email: info@fmit.vn 
Email: nguyentung@fmit.vn
Website: www.fmit.edu.vn

Zimbabwe:
For more information on activities being planned please contact:
Dr. Proctor Nyemba at:  admin@internalcontrolinstitute.co.zw
Website:  http://www.internalcontrolinstitute.co.zw/index.html


Internal Control Chatter  
Each month the staff of The Internal Control Institute reviews hundreds of articles related to Internal Control and Corporate Governance. Here are brief summaries of some of the top articles (along with links to the original article) that may be of interest to you.
Ericsson plans to take $1.23B hit for corruption fine in Q3
by Linda Hardesty 
fiercewireless.com
Sep 26, 2019 
Ericsson today said it will apportion $1.23 billion in its third quarter 2019 earnings to cover an estimated fine of $1 billion, plus other related costs, related to a corruption investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ericsson has been cooperating since 2013 with the SEC and since 2015 with the DOJ in regard to Ericsson's compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
The company says the investigation covers a period ending in the first quarter of 2017 and involves its activities in six countries: China, Djibouti, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Ericsson has not said what the corruption investigation pertains to, although some press reports have said it relates to bribery scandals dating back more than a decade. Ericsson said, "It is the company's assessment that the breaches are the result of several deficiencies, including a failure to react to red flags and inadequate internal controls, which enabled a limited number of employees to actively circumvent internal controls for illegitimate purposes."
Read the Article
More Companies Putting Internal Audit in Charge of SOX
By Joseph McCafferty
internalaudit360.com
September 18, 2019  
A new study finds that companies are increasingly putting internal audit in charge of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) internal controls compliance, rather than departments such as financial reporting or legal.The survey, conducted by the SOX & Internal Controls Professionals Group, finds that 46 percent of respondents report that internal audit is in charge of managing the SOX internal controls compliance function, a 5 percent increase from last year, and up from the 32 percent who said internal audit handled it in 2016. There is also an increase in the use of a dedicated SOX/IC compliance team. About a third of respondents say SOX is now headed by a dedicated team, up from 25 percent last year.
Click here to read the article and obtain a copy of the survey
QCA's Updated Guidance for Audit Committees
natlawreview.com
September 21, 2019
Audit committees are key to public confidence in a company's financial reporting. The responsibilities of audit committees and importance of their composition and involvement was reinforced in 2014 by the Audit Regulation and Amending Directive.  On 12 September 2019, the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) published its new and updated Audit Committee Guide, which replaces the November 2014 version. The Guide is intended to assist audit committee members and audit committee chairs in their roles and sits alongside the QCA Corporate Governance Code.
Click here to see the key changes from the 2014 version
Corporate Governance Lapses Key to Nissan's SEC Fines
news.bloomberglaw.com
Sept. 25, 2019
Why did Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. pay $15 million in fines for the misconduct of its CEO? Nissan's lax corporate governance paved the way for the wrongdoing.  On September 23, Nissan, the Japanese automaker listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, agreed  to pay $15 million to settle SEC fraud charges stemming from an alleged compensation scheme involving former CEO Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn's alleged misconduct is shocking: the Commission charged that Ghosn engaged in a scheme to conceal more than $90 million of compensation from public disclosure and to increase his retirement allowance by more than $50 million. Nearly as disturbing are the failures of Nissan's corporate governance and internal control structures to prevent the misconduct or to reveal the fraud for nearly a decade.
Read the Article
SOX Doesn't Mean Secure: Avoid Compliance Complacency To Keep Your Enterprise Safe
BY Jay Chaudhry
forbes.com
Sep 24, 2019
The legislation was crafted with the best of intentions. Some 17 years ago, the U.S. federal government enacted  the Sarbanes-Oxley Act  to create better controls for and increase the visibility of financial operations. Sarbanes-Oxley - or SOX, in common vernacular - regulates the reporting behavior of public companies (and their supply-chain partners) doing business in the U.S. But when it comes to information security, by today's standards, SOX falls short. Organizations that conflate SOX compliance with security will find themselves dangerously vulnerable to cyberattack.
Read the Article
House Passes PCAOB Whistleblower Protection Act of 2019
natlawreview.com
September 24, 2019
Today the House passed the PCAOB Whistleblower Protection Act of 2019 (PCAOB WPA) by voice vote.  If enacted into law, the PCAOB WPA would establish a whistleblower reward program at the PCAOB similar to the SEC whistleblower program and would protect whistleblowers against retaliation for disclosing violations of PCAOB rules or federal securities laws, including the Sarbanes Oxley Act.
Read the Article 
Inside the mind of a Fraudster
By Datuk Seri Akhbar Satar
nst.com.
September 7, 2019 
Fraud is a more serious crime than most people realise. It can be defined as the use of deception with the intention of "obtaining an advantage" or as "causing loss to another party". The term encompasses a wide variety of corrupt, deceptive or unethical behaviours.
As the definition underlines, the most important element of fraud is "intention". Proving intent in either the civil or criminal context is inherently difficult. However, in Malaysia, there is no such crime called fraud. The Penal Code does not define the word "fraud" but only provides for the following "fraudulent" offences which require "dishonesty" as an essential element in cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation and theft. The word "dishonesty" is defined in Section 24 of the Penal Code as an "intention of causing wrongful gain or wrongful loss to the other party" whereas Section 25 says, in respect of "fraudulently", that "a person is said to do a thing fraudulently if he does that thing with intent to defraud, but not otherwise". Fraud carries a huge financial cost to the economy. A recent report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) indicates that the total loss caused by fraud cases exceeded US$6.3 billion. According to the 2018 ACFE Report to Nations - a global analysis of the costs and effects of occupational fraud - an organisation typically loses about five per cent of its annual revenue to fraud each year.Malaysia lost RM47 billion in gross domestic product value to corruption last year alone. The Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2018: Malaysia Report reveals that 41 per cent of Malaysian companies reported experiencing economic crime in the last two years, up from 28 per cent in 2016.
Read the article
Good corporate governance necessary for building trust in corporate Malaysia
by 
Arjuna Chandran Shankar
theedgemarkets.com
September 24, 2019 
TRUST is a valuable commodity, and it permeates everything from a boardroom decision involving a merger and acquisition to the simplest act of making a promise to call your loved ones. Any decision, especially one made by a boardroom, needs to ensure that stakeholder trust is present and that it will not lead to unnecessary and excessive risks.  Malaysia is currently facing a trust deficit that is cutting across both public and private sectors - a quick glance at the headlines is evidence of that. This trust deficit is due to the abuse of trust and has to be rectified through good corporate governance. According to Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia (ICDM) chairman Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, trust deficits can be combated through good corporate governance, particularly at the boardroom level.
Read the Article
Data-measurement firm Comscore settles fraud charges with the SEC
By Associated Press
latimes.com
Sep 24, 2019
Data-measurement firm Comscore has settled fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission and will pay a $5-million penalty.  Its former CEO, Serge Matta, will also pay $700,000 and give Comscore back $2.1 million from his pay and sales of company stock. He is also barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for a decade. Comscore and Matta did not admit or deny the SEC's charges.  The commission said Tuesday that Comscore fraudulently inflated its revenue by $50 million from February 2014 to February 2016, which helped it beat Wall Street analysts' sales estimates for seven quarters. 
Read the Article
Control Quotes
Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.
Denis Waitley
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ABOUT ICI
 
ici logo The Internal Control Institute™ (ICI) is a worldwide organization  devoted exclusively to internal control and corporate governance. The Institute is dedicated to the development of world-class educational programs and best practice guidelines on internal control and corporate governance, based on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the COSO internal control framework.  Visit us on the web at the Internal Control Institute
Control Chatter is a monthly news summary of the top stories concerning internal control and corporate governance.  Control Chatter is prepared by the staff of Internal Control Institute for the benefit of their members and associates. Please consider it for your personal use or pass it on to associates who may have an interest in one or more of the topics by clicking on the Forward email button below.