Business Reform

Issuing a sweeping call for ethical reform in medicine, a group of leading physicians and scholars said doctors shouldn't accept drug samples, junkets or even ballpoint pens from drug or medical-device companies. In today's Journal of the American Medical Assn., or JAMA, 11 experts warned that the financial ties between physicians and drug and device vendors are undermining scientific integrity and patient care.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System on Monday said it would withhold votes to reelect Citigroup Inc. Chairman Sanford I. Weill and certain directors at Coca-Cola Co. and 10 other major companies, aiming to improve corporate governance by protesting the makeup of company boards. CalPERS, the biggest U.S.

The new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board plans to launch inspections of the Big Four accounting firms in its first year as the industry's independent watchdog, the board's acting chief said Thursday. Charles D. Niemeier, former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division, said tackling the Big Four would be a "Herculean task" for the fledgling board.

President Obama's plan to crack down on what he called abuse of overseas tax loopholes was met Monday with quick and unusually sharp opposition from big business, threatening to produce the administration's first major confrontation with a broad segment of corporate America.

Congress has all but abandoned legislative proposals to ensure that employee retirement funds are not concentrated in their employers' stock, after hearing from businesses that vigorously oppose such restrictions. The recently devastated retirement accounts of employees at Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. initially fueled a wave of indignation among lawmakers in Washington and solemn vows to protect their investments.

The U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board may consider delaying a rule requiring stock options to be expensed because companies face deadlines to implement other rules. "We may need more time," FASB Chairman Robert Herz said at a news conference at the regulator's Norwalk, Conn., headquarters. "We are hearing people say they are stretched to the maximum." Companies already face a year-end deadline for putting in place new financial control systems under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Members of Congress on Wednesday expressed doubts about the recent $1.4-billion settlement of alleged misconduct by Wall Street brokerage firms and suggested tougher penalties might be needed to change the attitudes that led to such behavior. Lawmakers also urged regulators to keep up the pressure on investment firms and to hold accountable top executives who engaged in misconduct.

Good corporate deeds suddenly aren't looking quite so good. Recent disclosures about the charitable giving habits of L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former Tyco International Ltd. chief executive who has been accused of stealing company funds to make $43 million in personal donations, have thrown corporate philanthropy under a harsh spotlight. The charges against Kozlowski have brought nonprofit groups into the swirl of scandal that is plaguing corporate America.

Three officers and a director of NewCom Inc., a defunct Westlake Village tech firm, were charged Thursday with falsifying company financial records in a case federal prosecutors portrayed as an example of the Bush administration's pledge to crack down on corporate greed. The criminal fraud and conspiracy case is the latest development in a long investigation of NewCom and its majority owner, Aura Systems Inc. of El Segundo.

An increasing number of the 500 largest U.S. companies have appointed women as board directors over the last nine years, a report released Tuesday said, but the progress of change has slowed to a near-glacial pace. Fortune 500 companies with female board members have risen 25.8% since Catalyst, a nonprofit research group, ran its first census on the subject in 1993. But from 1997 to the present, companies with female board members rose by only 3.6%, compared with a 21.