About Caroline McDonald

Caroline McDonald is a writer and former senior editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine.
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Risk Link Roundup

Link Roundup

Here are a few recent articles that highlight issues impacting the world of risk and insurance, including blogs and articles about FIFA corruption, whistleblower programs—both pro and con—and the supply chain in outer space.

Iran, Russia Reject Idea of Joint Oil Output Cuts with Saudi Arabia
Reuters: Oil-producing countries looked unlikely to reach a deal to lift languishing prices at a meeting on Friday after Iran, Iraq and Russia swiftly rejected a surprise proposal that appeared to have been floated by Saudi Arabia.

16 Additional FIFA Officials Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy and Corruption
U.S. Department of Justice: A 92-count superseding indictment was unsealed earlier today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging an additional 16 defendants with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offenses, in connection with their participation in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer.

Are Whistleblower Reward Programs Really a Good Idea?
FCPA Blog: Since the start of the SEC whistleblower program in 2011, the agency has awarded $54 million to 22 whistleblowers “who provided the SEC with unique and useful information that contributed to a successful enforcement action.”

Yes, We Need Whistleblower Rewards
FCPA Blog: Congress could not have been any clearer in its statutory design. Nor the SEC any more outspoken in its revitalized approach to government enforcement. Whistleblower rewards work.

Supply Chain Challenges in Space Exploration
OPS Rules Blog: Space supply chains are low demand and highly schedule driven. This might seem to be in contrast to commercial supply chains, which deal with high volume and compressed lead times. But applying the principles governing the commercial fast paced supply chains to the space supply chain can make it more agile and cost efficient.

Long-Awaited Infrastructure Repair Bill Nears Passage

Road work

While short-term patches have been used to shore up our nation’s infrastructure for years, leaving large, long-term projects such as bridge repairs to languish, those issues may be remedied by a bill passed by Congress on Tuesday. The measure approves a long-awaited five-year measure of more than $300 billion to fund highways and mass transit. Known as TEA-21, the bill is expected to win final passage by the House and Senate.

“Right now, 11% of our bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient and another 13% are considered functionally obsolete,” Andrew W. Herrmann, 2012 president of ASCE and principal with Hardesty & Hanover LLP, an infrastructure engineering firm, told Risk Management in February 2014. “This means they were designed to an older standard, so they may not have the same lane widths or turning radius or may have been designed to carry lesser loads.”

Deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure jeopardizes public safety, threatens quality of life, and drains the U.S. economy. “If they have to start closing down, restricting or putting mileage postings on bridges, the economy will be affected,” said Herrmann, who served on the advisory council for the 2003, 2005 and 2013 report cards and chaired the council for the 2009 edition. “Bridges are the most pressing need in the infrastructure overall. You can have all the roads and highways you want, but if you don’t have the bridges to cross the rivers and intersections, it slows everything down.”

In California alone, 58% of roadways require rehabilitation or pavement maintenance, 20% need major maintenance or preventative work and 6% need to be replaced. Traffic volume is also growing 10 times faster than lane miles, the California Transportation Commission reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, highlights of the bill include:

  • Extending the Highway Trust Fund through Sept. 30, 2020, and allowing for total transportation spending of as much as $305 billion.
  • Renewing the Export-Import Bank through September 2019.
  • Separating the budget for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor services from the rest of the passenger rail network. This would allow the carrier to invest more in the heavily-traveled lines between Boston and Washington.
  • Preserving a program that allots a share of mass-transit funding for seven high-density Northeast states, including New York and New Jersey. The House had earlier voted to eliminate the set-aside and use the money to fund bus programs whose funding had been slashed in 2012.
  • Providing a total $10.8 billion for freight projects, including establishing a $4.5 billion grant program designed to award money to large-scale freight projects.
  • Providing the largest share of funds to the federal highway-aid program, with authorization to spend $207.4 billion over five years.
  • Providing the next largest share of funding to mass transit projects, at $48.7 billion over five years, an increase over levels approved by the House.

2015 Extreme Weather Events in Review

From hurricanes to hail to droughts to tornadoes, 2015 was a busy year for extreme weather events.

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Drought in California continued to worsen, increasing the risk of wildfires.

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While record rainfall in Texas and Oklahoma alleviated drought, it caused severe flash flooding in Texas. There have been 25 Category 4-5 northern hemisphere tropical cyclones—the most on record to date, breaking the old record of 18 set in 1997 and 2004.

The Insurance Information Institute reported that insured losses from natural disasters in the United States in just the first half of 2015 totaled $12.6 billion—well above the $11.2 billion average in the first halves of 2000 to 2014.

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Interstate Restoration provides a look at 2015 weather events:

storms_2015_infographic2

Boards Still Lagging on Gender Parity

Although women make up nearly half of the workforce in the United States, they represent only 16.9% of board members, according to Catalyst’s “Women on Boards.” Norway tops the list with 40.5%, followed by Sweden with 27% and Finland with 26.8%. Japan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, are at the bottom of the list with 1.1%, 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.

Mary Jo White, who chairs the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission board addressed the issue of board parity global-banner-sealin her remarks to the Women’s Forum of New York on Nov. 19.

White said:

We all have indeed come a long way since 1974. Today, women receive more than half of all bachelors’, masters’ and doctorate degrees, and more than a third of MBAs. Women are approximately half of the total workforce and half of all managers. But there remain areas stubbornly resistant to the progress that objectively should have already occurred. One in the legal profession is the percentage of women who are equity partners at law firms—18%. That number has only increased 2% since 2006, and we had achieved 12.9% back in 1994. Another resistant area is the financial arena—we now account for 29% of senior officials in finance and insurance, and no woman has, for example, ever been CEO of one of the 22 largest U.S. investment banks or financial firms. A third critical area that has been a particular priority for the Women’s Forum of New York is the focus of today’s event: gender diversity in U.S. boardrooms.

Let us be clear at the outset, this is not a pipeline issue. We are here—in numbers, and we are qualified—in numbers. And yet, there are comparatively very few of us in corporate boardrooms—17.5% in Fortune 1000 companies and 19.2% for the S&P 500.

She noted, “As a growing body of research confirms, it is smart business to have your board diversified to reflect the marketplace and benefit from broader perspectives. It is also the right thing to do.” White added that only 3% of Fortune 1000 companies have boards where women make up at least 40%. She recommended that companies keep “a laser-like focus” on gender parity and “reject any notion that there is a shortage of highly qualified candidates.”

According to Catalyst:

Board seats 1Board seats 1-a