Being an Audit Committee Chair

A new blog entry by Keith Higgins of Ropes & Gray LLP cites the case of Vasant Raval, the audit committee chair of infoGroup, Inc. who consented to an injunction and agreed to pay a $50,000 fine for not stopping $10 million of payments for illegal perks to the CEO along with $9 million in related party transactions. Having been a public company audit committee member and chair myself, it seems rather odd for the SEC to have made an example of the directors and officers of this company, when the folks at Lehman Brothers Holdings (board, officers and auditors) seem to have not suffered even an Excedrin headache for their contributing to the destruction of billions of dollars in value while also cashing out hundreds of millions in stock sales ahead of the collapse. "Bad facts make bad law," according to Mr. Higgins.