Unit 13 too careful and you can choke

1. Pronounce the following words and word combinations. Use a dictionary if necessary.

To choke, to stifle, flair, tightening, litigious, to cower, acquisitive, compliance, mounting, enlargement, negligent, manipulation, prospectus, insurable, to outsource, watershed, reputational.

2. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and word combinations.

To become risk-averse, to stifle entrepreneurial flair, to wither away, tightening rules on corporate governance, litigious environment, to squeeze entrepreneurial flair, to cower, to forgo both organic and acquisitive growth opportunities, to add value, to adopt positive risk management, to be embraced in the search for profit, risk management techniques, to be set for adoption, legal frameworks, to target compliance with regulations, mounting challenge, string of directives, faulty products, wronged consumers, to be liable for damages, to implement a directive, to focus on risk management, to tackle a risk, to trail in third place, to be pretty well asset driven, to contract out many manufacturing operations, to slim the number of suppliers, to cross the watershed.

3. Read the text again and answer the following questions.

1. What is the biggest risk to European corporations today?

2. What is essential to corporate success?

3. What is the alternative?

4. Positive risk management is emerging as the third evolution in the development of risk management techniques, isn’t it?

5. What strategies have many leading companies implemented?

6. Where is the regulatory environment changing fast?

7. Why do the issues of compliance present a mounting challenge in the European Union?

8. What extends liability for faulty products?

9. How does a string of directives change the burden of proof?

10. How many companies responded in a joint study by FERMA? How much per cent had defined a risk management policy?

11. Who was the leader in broad-ranging risk management?

12. What risks were called the most dangerous?

13. What were the fastest-growing risks?

14. When was the principal focus for most companies pretty well asset driven?

15. What is the focus now? And what is reason for it?

16. Why is there a growing awareness that “a supplier’s risk is also my risk”?

17. What is the biggest risk to companies of using negative risk management in the current threatening environment?

18. What is the second-biggest risk?

19. What do you have if you have good risk management systems?

4. Complete the sentences with the information taken from the text.

1. The fastest-growing risks are around corporate governance, data systems and the … .

2. There is a liability for … products.

3. British companies were followed by German rivals, with French companies … in third place.

4. European companies have now crossed the … that allows them to see positive risk management as a competitive tool.

5. The focus is on protecting ideas, data, and market share because of … … in the nature of many west European businesses.

6. Companies’ … of risk are also revealing.

7. Many European companies figured they had also … risk.

8. Threats to a company’s reputation constitute the … -… risk.