Remember Lucent Technologies?

The SEC certainly has. The regulator Wednesday announced it settled with two additional people stemming from a 10-year old accounting scandal.

If a company commits financial fraud, chances are the CFO or CEO has their fingerprints on it.

This is the conclusion of a new study recently trotted out by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

If you are thinking about slipping a few hundred million bucks to some foreign government official to secure a business deal, think again.

The Obama Administration has made it very clear that it is cracking down on bribes.

According to a recent report sent to clients by the law firm Willkie Farr, in the first three months of 2010 alone, the U.S. government brought or resolved FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) charges against 36 companies and individuals.

Remember David Stockman? President Reagan's one-time Director of the Office of Management and Budget?

Still don't? He's the one who espoused the virtues of supply-side economics and the trick down theory.

The Securities and Exchange Commission shocked the financial world and beyond Friday when it charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter.

Its complaint alleges that Goldman created and sold a synthetic collateralized debt obligation (CDO) to a hedge fund manager that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS). However, the investment banking giant failed to disclose to investors vital information about the CDO, in particular the role that a major hedge fund played in the portfolio selection process and the fact that the hedge fund had taken a short position against the CDO, according to the SEC.

Wednesday was not a good one for the CFO profession.

Two separate trials have gotten underway this week involving chief financial officers. One of them is civil while the other is criminal.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to take some sort of action against several former employees at Dell stemming from accounting and financial reporting matters dating back to 2001.

The computer maker said in a regulatory filing the individuals received "Wells Notices," which indicates the SEC staff has made a preliminary decision to recommend that the SEC begin a civil or administrative action against the former employees. Dell also said it is possible that other individuals have received or will receive such notices, although it did not provide more details to this cryptic reference.

The CFOs at 24 large financial institutions can expect a nice little treat in the mail sometime soon from the Securities and Exchange Commission: a letter asking them for detailed information about their use of repurchase agreements and their accounting and disclosure of these transactions, Reuters reported.

The inquiry, of course, is in response to the now infamous "Repo 105" transactions uncovered at Lehman Brothers by its bankruptcy examiner, which allowed the bank to move as much as $50 billion off its balance sheet just before reporting earnings and to move them back on later.

One thing is missing from this downturn that was present in so many previous downturns: the CFO perp walk. Post Worldcom and Enron, it was corporate officers who were hauled off to jail. In the 1980s in Europe it was crooked corporate bosses in companies such as Polly Peck and Guinness who were detained ‘at her majesty's pleasure'. But this downturn, CFOs can take a breather, for it is the bankers, financiers and hedge fund managers who are taking the heat.

There is a small buzz going on in the blogosphere regarding a job posting Google recently made for a trader of foreign government bonds.

FT Alphaville says this is an evolution of the corporate treasury function, since banks typically handle such trades. A source told the Business Insider that this was a means for Google to make use of its large cash reserves. Business Insider also made an off-hand comment that "Google has long discussed using its access to massive amounts of data to build a hedge fund."

One thing that's unclear is whether Google is still restricted in the kinds of investments it can make. Back in 2006, the company applied for an exemption to the Investment Company Act of 1940, which gives the Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory power over any company engaged in investing in or trading securities or has over 40 percent of its total non-cash assets in investment securities. Companies including Microsoft and Yahoo have exemptions to the law.