- •Vocabulary Commentary
- •All yours Manufacturing companies are increasingly using the Internet to give customers the impression of personal service. But true customisation needs new production techniques as well
- •Vocabulary
- •Can Bayer Cure Its Own Headache? Shareholders would like it to shed everything but health care
- •Vocabulary
- •«Байер» перестраивается
- •Nokia's next act Can the Finnish giant stay on top in an age of commodity phones and stalling sales?
- •Vocabulary
- •Canon Cutting Edge By trimming down to four product lines, it's making record profits
- •Halfway down a long road Carlos Ghosn's efforts to meld Nissan with Renault have become the stuff of management legend. But the alliance faces some daunting challenges
- •Can Ford Fix This Flat?
- •Vocabulary
- •Vocabulary
- •A Challenge From the Nimble Newcomers
- •Mergers & Acquisitions Will the latest cycle of European mergers produce better results?
- •Vocabulary
- •Vocabulary Commentary
- •Independent directors at big public companies need to be tougher
- •Vocabulary
- •Vocabulary
- •U r Sakd
- •Is there a nice way?
- •Simon London finds the post of chief operating officer falling prey to a new breed of executive with greater powers and access to the boss
- •The Bottom Line on Options
- •Unit 13 Consolidation
- •Will ceOs Find Their Inner Choirboy?
- •Пролетая над Таити
- •Vocabulary
- •Useful Words and Phrases
- •«Нортел»
- •The Numbers Game Companies use every trick to pump earnings and fool investors. The latest abuse: "Pro forma" reporting"
- •Vocabulary
- •Unit 15
- •I swear… Oaths are only a small step in the business of cleaning up American companies
- •Something must be done
- •Vocabulary
- •Holier Than Thou European sanctimony over American accounting scandals is misplaced
- •Et, the extra-territorial
- •Vocabulary
- •Revenge of the Bean Counters No longer frail in the face of fraud, accounting firms are thriving on new u.S. Laws that give them real clout
- •Half Measures
- •Bad for cfOs, Good for Investors
- •Хранители прозрачности или слуга двух господ
- •Unit 16
- •Up from the ashes Amid a global wave of business failures, American firms are more likely to get a second chance. Unfair competition, or a lesson for Europeans?
- •Eurotunnel vision
- •Vocabulary
- •Var crash
- •Vocabulary
- •Европа уходит за рубеж
- •Goldman's German revolution
- •Have Fat Cats Had Their Day?
- •Unit 18
- •Stronger foundations New proposals for regulating banks are both a step in the right direction and evidence of how hard it is to monitor the riskiness of the banking system
- •Vocabulary
- •Vocabulary
- •Английский характер
- •Unit 19
- •Conflicts, conflicts everywhere Was America wrong to scrap the laws that kept commercial and investment banking apart?
- •Vocabulary
- •Care To Buy Some David Bowie Bonds
- •In Europe, securitization is the hottest way to raise cash
- •Beautifying Branches
- •Instead of axing their branches, banks are inventing new ways to make money out of them
- •Slippery
- •Coffee, Tea, or Mortgage?
- •Life Branches?
- •The world's biggest retailer edges into financial services
- •Гросс-банки сокращаются
- •Feeding Frenzy
- •Tough Questions for aig's Auditors Regulators are probing if PwC let the financial shenanigans slip through
- •Watchdogs with Eyes Wide Shut As investigators pore over the books of aig, it's becoming clear that for years regulators failed to detect lapses
- •Goldman's German Revolution
- •Another Year, Another Scandal
- •Digging out at Allianz The German financial-services giant is back in the black — but still struggling
- •A Dedicated Enemy of Fashion Most companies claim to run their business for the long term. Nestle is one of the few that really does
- •More Pain, Waiting for the Gains Drastic action as gm's cash pile runs down
- •«Морган Стэнли» увольняет сотрудников, чтобы оставшиеся лучше работали
Watchdogs with Eyes Wide Shut As investigators pore over the books of aig, it's becoming clear that for years regulators failed to detect lapses
Where were the watchdogs? State and federal investigators are examining the accounts of insurance giant American International Group Inc., drawing out super-investor Warren Buffet and sparring with ousted AIG Chairman and CEO Maurice Greenberg.
But the feverish enforcement activity obscures the fact that AIG's admitted misstatements — so far worth, by the company's estimate, $1.7 bn to shareholders — and other industry transgressions went undetected by many of the same agencies, in some instances for 14 years or longer.
What's emerging from the probes is a portrait of failed regulation. Unlike banking or Wall Street, which answer to federal regulators, the $1.2 trillion insurance industry is overseen by small, usually obscure state offices.
Outgunned by the insurance giants, state commissioners, interested in pleasing voters, usually focus on such consumer issues as taking complaints on auto and homeowners' insurance.
Many admit that they're out of their depths on sophisticated financing deals with offshore reinsurers, like those that fogged AIG's books and snarled Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Re Corp. subsidiary in disputes from Memphis to Melbourne. '"State regulators are doing their best but they are not equipped to police multistate or international scams," says Jay Aughtman, a lawyer who represents insurance regulators in Tennessee and other states.
The obvious solution: national regulation. But even absent a strong new federal agency, current watchdogs can do more. The Securities and Exchange Commission must use its broad authority to review filings of public companies to focus on insurers' financial reporting until it's confident the industry has cleaned up its act.
Auditors, too, must become more vigilant. The suspect deals at AIG bear an eerie resemblance to special purpose entities that brought down Enron. Like the SPEs, the reinsurers AIG used were supposed to be independent — but were in fact closely linked to the parent company.
Accounting-rule writers must also move faster to clarify standards for ''structured finance" — a category that includes off-balance-sheet SPEs and the reinsurance that AIG allegedly used to beef up its numbers.
Insurance is a devilishly complicated business, and the industry often plays by no-holds-barred rules. "Insurance is like the Wild West — it makes Wall Street seem quite orderly and gentlemanly," says an analyst. It's also increasingly sophisticated industry in which players take advantage of every international loophole available to move operations offshore in order to decrease scrutiny and cut tax liabilities.
In this high-stakes business, regulators can't afford to be caught napping. When they snooze, investors lose.
Business Week
• Text 5. Translate the text orally.