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The private placement is the principal alternative method of financing to an SEC registered offering. The private placement avoids registration under the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”) with its concomitant costs and delays. It also avoids periodic reporting under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) for foreign private issuers. Issuers frequently resell their private placement securities abroad or to other qualified institutional investors. The combination of statutory exemptions, Rule 144A, Regulation S, and other SEC initiatives enable issuers to take advantage of these benefits

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission adopted Regulation S in 1990 to clarify that offshore offers and sales of securities need not comply with the onerous registration requirements of US securities laws. In the short time since Regulation S was adopted, a number of issuers have abused the regulation. Amendments designed to curb these abuses have been recently proposed. This paper addresses the impact of the amendments and identifies significant issues to consider when undertaking a Regulation S transaction.

The purpose of this paper is to describe recent amendments to Rule 144 of the Securities Act of 1933 concerning holding periods and resale of privately placed securities.

The paper describes key changes with respect to shortened holding periods, elimination of most requirements for non‐affiliates, and relaxation of requirements for sale of debt securities.

The paper finds that the SEC has adopted significant amendments to Rule 144 that will increase the liquidity of privately placed securities and ease the burden on issuers caused by having to grant burdensome registration rights. The amendments shorten the holding periods before affiliates and non‐affiliates may sell restricted securities and otherwise loosen restrictions on the public resale of equity and debt securities acquired in private placements.

The paper is a useful guide to rule changes written by experienced securities lawyers.

Computerized accounting information systems (CAIS) are becoming more readily available to all types and sizes of business. The increased growth in real‐time and online data processing in CAIS has made access to these systems more available and easier for many users. Therefore, implementing adequate security controls over organisations, CAIS and their related facilities has become a necessity. The main objective of this article is to investigate the adequacy security controls implemented in the Egyptian banking industry (EBI) to preserve the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the banks' data and their CAIS through a proposed security controls check‐list. The security controls check‐list of CAIS was developed based on the available literature and the empirical results of previous studies. It includes many security counter‐measures that are empirically tested here for the first time. The entire population of the EBI has been surveyed in this research. The significant differences between the two respondent groups had been investigated. The statistical results revealed that the vast majority of Egyptian banks had adequate CAIS security controls in place. The results also revealed that the heads of computer departments (HoCD) paid relatively more attention to technical problems of CAIS security controls. This study has provided invaluable empirical results regarding inadequacies of implemented CAIS security controls in the EBI. Accordingly some recommendations were suggested to strengthen the security controls in the Egyptian banking sector.

This paper aims to examine the existence and adequacy of implemented computerized accounting information system (CAIS) security controls to prevent, detect and correct security breaches in Saudi organization.

The first part of the paper introduces and discusses the literature review concerned with the CAIS security controls. The current paper introduces and discusses the main results of the empirical investigation. An empirical survey using self‐administered questionnaire, was carried out to achieve this purpose. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed on a random sample of Saudi organizations. Of them, 275 valid, usable questionnaires were collected and analyzed.

The results of the study highlight a number of inadequately implemented CAIS security controls, and some suggestions and recommendations are introduced to strengthen the weak points and to close the loopholes in the present CAIS security controls in Saudi organizations.

From a practical standpoint, mangers, auditors, IT users and practitioners alike stand to gain from the findings of this study.

The results presented in the paper help enable managers, auditors, IT users and practitioners to better understand and secure their CAIS and to champion IT development for the success of their businesses.

The daily valuation of portfolio securities can be one of the most onerous aspects of managing a registered investment company or mutual fund. The developing complexity of securities combined with the increasing influence of foreign markets and nonexchange‐traded holdings have made the accurate pricing of securities difficult at best. Mutual funds typically rely on a myriad of sources to price their portfolio holdings, including domestic pricing services, broker‐dealers, foreign custodians or pricing agents, matrix pricing, fair value committees, or any combination thereof (see Exhibit). While the pricing function is typically delegated, fund management and the board of directors or trustees have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that appropriate pricing procedures and supervisory activities are in place.

Understanding the behavioral change process of system users to adopt safe security practices is important to the success of an organization’s cybersecurity program. This study aims to explore how the 7Ps (product, price, promotion, place, physical evidence, process and people) marketing mix, as part of an internal social marketing approach, can be used to gain an understanding of employees’ interactions within an organization’s cybersecurity environment. This understanding could inform the design of servicescapes and behavioral infrastructure to promote and maintain cybersecurity compliance.

This study adopted an inductive qualitative approach using in-depth interviews with employees in several Vietnamese organizations. Discussions were centered on employee experiences and their perceptions of cybersecurity initiatives, as well as the impact of initiatives on compliance behavior. Responses were then categorized under the 7Ps marketing mix framework.

The study shows that assessing a cybersecurity program using the 7P mix enables the systematic capture of users’ security compliance and acceptance of IT systems. Additionally, understanding the interactions between system elements permits the design of behavioral infrastructure to enhance security efforts. Results also show that user engagement is essential in developing secure systems. User engagement requires developing shared objectives, localized communications, co-designing of efficient processes and understanding the “pain points” of security compliance. The knowledge developed from this research provides a framework for those managing cybersecurity systems and enables the design human-centered systems conducive to compliance.

The study is one of the first to use a cross-disciplinary social marketing approach to examine how employees experience and comply with security initiatives. Previous studies have mostly focused on determinants of compliance behavior without providing a clear platform for management action. Internal social marketing using 7Ps provides a simple but innovative approach to reexamine existing compliance approaches. Findings from the study could leverage proven successful marketing techniques to promote security compliance.

The potential gains available from diversifying security holdings internationally (as opposed to merely nationally) are examined. A theoretical framework is developed illustrating the conditions necessary for international diversification to result in benefit to the investor, and the likelihood of these conditions being met is considered. Previous research which contains empirical results quantifying the potential benefits is reported.

The purpose of this paper is to try to reach the main factors that could put national security at risk as a result of government cloud computing programs.

The paper adopts the analytical approach to first lay foundations of the relation between national security, cybersecurity and cloud computing, then it moves to analyze the main vulnerabilities that could affect national security in cases of government cloud computing usage.

The paper reached several findings such as the relation between cybersecurity and national security as well as a group of factors that may affect national security when governments shift to cloud computing mainly pertaining to storing data over the internet, the involvement of a third party, the lack of clear regulatory frameworks inside and between countries.

Governments are continuously working on developing their digital capacities to meet citizens’ demands. One of the most trending technologies adopted by governments is “cloud computing”, because of the tremendous advantages that the technology provides; such as huge cost-cutting, huge storage and computing capabilities. However, shifting to cloud computing raises a lot of security concerns.

The value of the paper resides in the novelty of the topic, which is a new contribution to the theoretical literature on relations between new technologies and national security. It is empirically important as well to help governments stay safe while enjoying the advantages of cloud computing.