As a company that trades on the open market, we have many rules and regulations to follow in regards to employee trading. Part of this is a yearly training session on trading compliance and the systems we provide. I sat thru this a few weeks back. It was the normal session about not accepting cash or large gifts, and not trading stocks that the company is currently researching or holding, et cetera.
At the end of the presentation, the head of the compliance team stood up. She thanked her staff for the presentation and thanked all of us for coming. Then she pulled out a newspaper. She described the company in the news and how similar it was to ours in size, focus, and culture. She then read from the paper. This company had a compliance lapse. The SEC fined the company millions of dollars, and fined the person who executed the trade over a hundred thousand. The room fell dead silent.
I thought this was a particularly effective technique to reinforce the idea that the rules we follow really do matter.
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