Trust Digest 25 (October 21, 2013)

Britain Weighs Creating System to Reward Whistle-Blowers 
The British government is considering creating a reward system, similar to ones in the United States, to encourage whistle-blowers to come forward to root out fraud and other white-collar crime.
Key Word: Whistleblowers
Trust Issues: Responsibility, Accountability, Integrity, Regulation
 
Which Companies Have the Best CSR Reputation? 
Microsoft, the Walt Disney Company, Google and BMW are the companies with the best corporate social responsibility reputation, according to a study by corporate reputation management consultancy Reputation Institute.
Key Words: Reputation, CSR
Trust Issues: Integrity, Reputation
 
Credit Suisse in LGBT Launch
Credit Suisse’s private banking clients in the US will from Monday have the opportunity to buy into a portfolio of large companies with “gay-friendly” corporate policies… “America’s corporations learnt long ago that equality is just good business and is the right thing to do,” Mr Blankfein said in the video…Mr O’Hara said the same of Credit Suisse’s new plans: “Sure it’s a good thing to do, but to me, what’s the best reinforcement is it’s a good business thing to do.” 
Key Words: LGBT, Investment Banking
Trust Issues: Responsibility, Integrity, Reputation, Stakeholders
 
Sending a Bad Message to Big Banks
Opinion piece from former Bank of America executive Mr. Parsons. “In what can only be described as a stunning revelation, the current head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Martin Gruenberg, said in a speech on Oct. 13 that ‘prior to the recent crisis, the major national authorities here and abroad did not envision that these large, systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) could fail, and thus little thought was devoted to their resolution.’ That statement, with its astonishing lack of historical perspective, should be kept in mind when considering the news that emerged over the weekend of a deal in the works for J.P. Morgan Chase  to pay a staggering $13 billion penalty to resolve various civil investigations into its conduct over the past several years.”
Key Word: Banks
Trust Issues: Regulation, Stakeholders
 
Huawei Proposes Independent Cybersecurity Testing Labs 
The world needs independent testing labs that can review off-the-shelf IT products and rate their trustworthiness -- not only on the performance front but also from an information security standpoint...Faced with this trust deficit -- and evidence that the NSA analyzes their every communication -- some governments and national telecommunications providers have reacted with plans that just six months ago would have seemed laughable. 
Key Words: NSA, Trust, Cybersecurity
Trust Issues: Regulation, Stakeholders, Integrity, Reputation
 
Open Season 
In 1965, C.E.O.s at big companies earned, on average, about twenty times as much as their typical employee. These days, C.E.O.s earn about two hundred and seventy times as much… The business press, meanwhile, now rigorously tracks executive pay. The result is that shareholders today know far more about C.E.O. compensation than ever before. There’s only one problem: even as companies are disclosing more and more, executive pay keeps going up and up.
Key Word: Executive pay
Trust Issues: Responsibility, Reputation, Regulation, Motives, Stakeholders