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Risk Management Links of the Day: 12.16.09

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janet napolitano DHS

  • Department of Homeland Security Fail: “Tahaya Buchanan, an American fugitive who’d been on the run for more than two years, dodging a national arrest warrant for insurance fraud, has spent her years underground gainfully employed by the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Our homeland security watchdog is doing something right, however, as DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday announced a “first of its kind federal-state cybersecurity partnership” between the department and the state of Michigan. As someone who reads dozens of horrible press releases every day, I can assure you that this is one of the least informative press releases ever written (and, not for nothing, DHS could probably use some proofreaders), but the gist of this thing seems to center around some sort of collaborative IT system to uncover malware and cyberattacks — or something.
  • With the financial collapse bankrupting Iceland and putting once-low-risk economies like those of Greece and Latvia on the ropes, Ellen Brown looks at how even the developed world nations of the EU are now bucking IMF debt-repayment protocols. And as former fat cats like Dubai have shown, today’s global climate means that even formerly nonvolatile nations need to be given more scrutiny when it comes to credit risks. “Dozens of countries have defaulted on their debts in recent decades, the most recent being Dubai, which declared a debt moratorium on November 26, 2009. If the once lavishly-rich Arab emirate can default, more desperate countries can; and when the alternative is to destroy the local economy, it is hard to argue that they shouldn’t.”
  • The video streaming site Justin.tv is under scrutiny for its inability to prevent its users from illegally uploading copyrighted content. Ultimately, this is the same fight that has been going on regarding digital intellectual property since Napster and, later, Kazaa gave rise to widespread music piracy across college campuses in the late 90s. YouTube faced similar scrutiny and many lawsuits and, like Napster, has used the “we’re not doing anything wrong — it’s our users” defense. But where Napster (and other, more brazen sharing sites like The Pirate Bay) failed, sites like YouTube have (thus far) been able to sidestep major legal recourse by having procedures (which, if we’re being honest, are only minimally effective) that ensure the removal of content if it is reported as infringing copyright. Getting back to the main story…Now under the threat of legal action, Justin.tv told its side of the story in front of the House Judiciary Committee this morning. “Justin.tv calls on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which they claim should provide them with a safe harbor for copyright-infringing content that appears on the website before they or the appropriate right owners get a chance to remove it … The startup states that it aims to bring live video into the mainstream much like Flickr, The Huffington Post and YouTube have done for online images, news and video clips. The question is: are they really doing everything they can to fight piracy?”

Find an interesting link? Email me any stories, videos or images you come across and would like to see included. Or just follow me on Twitter @RiskMgmt and pass it along that way.

Aon Unveils “Global Risk Management Survey ’09” at RIMS 2009

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This morning at 9:00 am in the Orange County Convention Center, Aon unveiled its “2009 Global Risk Management Survey” and — unsurprisingly — fear of economic slowdown ranked as the number one concern for the 500-plus global organizations that responded. Stephen Cross, CEO of Aon Global Risk Consulting and one of the presenters detailing the survey results for the some 50 people attending the session, illustrated the largest concern for risk professionals if the slowdown continues to worsen.

“One outcome might be cost-cutting in risk management, which would be unfortunate,” said Cross. “We may be dealing with a situation where you have to do more with less.”

And as anyone who has ever tried likely already knows, you can’t do more with less; you can only do less with less.

The report went into more detail:

“Perhaps the most difficult risk management issue we face amidst this turmoil is ensuring that organizations remain committed to established, effective risk management strategies. Seeking short-term gains may restrict or reduce the long-term success of risk management programs. Risk controls, for example, should not be ignored for the sake of immediate expense cutting as they are essential to long-term cost mitigation.

“

Following the threat of a deeper global recession on the list of top risks came some other familiar suspects, as well as a few concerns that didn’t even register in last year’s top ten. Here’s the full breakdown.

1. Economic Slowdown
2. Regulatory/Legislative Change
3. Business Interruption
4. Increasing Competition
5. Commodity Price Risk
6. Damage to Reputation
7. Cash Flow/Liquidity Risk
8. Distribution or Supply Chain Failure
9. Third Party Liability
10. Failure to Attract or Retain Top Talent

In addition to tallying these results, Aon also asked companies how prepared they were for each of these risks. Shockingly, 60% said they were ready for the economic slowdown — something that sounded particularly dubious to Cross. “I was very surprised to see that 60% of people reported they were prepared for the economic slowdown because I’ve yet to meet this 60%,” said Cross. “If Warren Buffet lost billion personally, I don’t know where these 60% of people are.

”

To me, the realities of the economic slowdown are undeniable and even the most optimistic of economists seem to put the global recovery coming no sooner than early 2010. The inevitable and likely-soon-coming regulatory backlash from the financial sector meltdown, however, seems even more unpredictable. After AIG’s bonusgate plus the general populist outrage against everything from banks to carmakers, who really knows what Congress is going to draft?

Cross aptly summed up this fear. “It’s possible that the reaction may be over-reation.” Or as the report termed it:

“In the wake of the global economic crisis, an increase in regulation within the financial sector is widely anticipated; however, it is still unclear whether more stringent regulation will expand to other industry sectors. For multinationals, the cost, quantity and complexity of regulations presents serious challenges in terms of managing compliance with regulatory risks.”

Cross’ co-panelist Theresa Bourdon, who serves as Group Managing Director of the Americas for Aon Global Risk Consulting, raised another interesting concern. “The risks for companies is the inability to comply with these regulations, ” she said. “If you don’t comply, the penalties can be severe…More importantly, there is a lack of market share and reputation.

”

The panelists went on to discuss the new realities of supply chain risk and some emerging issues reported in business interruption. For even more info, read the full report.

And in other Aon-related news, you can also check out all the company’s RIMS 2009 events and activities over at its “Client World” website where the company is providing real-time updates from Orlando. You can also follow Aon live at RIMS 2009 on Twitter at @AonCorp.