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Scott Adams on Board Governance: From Financial Rounds
January 19, 2008 4:40 PM
Corporate governance survey conducted (Pakistan): From Inside Sarbanes Oxley
January 19, 2008 12:13 AM
Enron-driven reforms are unraveling: From Inside Sarbanes Oxley
January 19, 2008 12:06 AM
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The Finance Institute

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Diverts

Judge Throws Out Popcorn Case: Manhattan Civil Court Judge Matthew Cooper has thrown out Steve Kaplan's case against AMC Theatres. [more]
Biggest Elvis, Burger, Roller Coaster, and More!: In case you were wondering, the largest velvet Elvis -- he's 12 feet by 12 feet -- can be spotted at The Tattoo Factory in Chicago. [more]
British Women Bolt for Aussie Blokes: With promises of plentiful sunshine, affordable homes, low crime, good jobs, and lots of single men, Southern Australia is luring Britain's highly skilled, young women to its shores. [more]
More Diverts

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Compliance Alerts

A Guide to the New 404 Guidance: This white paper by James Hamilton, principal analyst with CCH, explores the new risk-based, principles-based regime for financial reporting under Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404. [more]
SEC Approves New 404 Guidance: As expected, the SEC gave its seal of approval today to new interpretative guidance for companies grappling with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. [more]
Compliance Costs Lighten Up: According to the results of its sixth survey covering Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, Financial Executives International (FEI) says that costs decreased in Section 404's third year of adoption. [more]
The Drive to Improve Internal Controls Without Regulation: Although they are not SEC-registered and therefore not accountable for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, 75 percent of the companies that participated in the Ernst & Young "Internal Control Survey 2007" plan to increase their investment in internal controls in the next 12 to 24 months. [more]
SOX Costs Drop: Finance executives report spending less on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance last year than they did in 2005, according to this executive report from Oversight Systems. [more]
Extension of Small-Business 404 Filing Deadline Unlikely: Small-cap companies have been already given an extension for complying with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 and could conceivably receive another reprieve -- "but that’s not Plan A," said SEC chairman Christopher Cox in testimony before the Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship of the US Senate. [more]
PCAOB Shares Second Report on AS No. 2: After the second year of Auditing Standard No 2 implementation, the PCAOB released "An Audit of Internal Control over Financial Reporting Performed in Conjunction with an Audit of Financial Statements. [more]
IRS Retains Outside Experts for Corporate Tax-Evasion Cases: According to an internal IRS memo, the agency is beefing up its efforts around a major enforcement priority -- transfer-pricing arrangements -- by engaging independent auditors to conduct examinations. [more]
Citigroup’s 17,000 Job Cuts Threaten Compliance Positions: In an abrupt reversal of initiatives to fortify compliance programs over the past few years, Citigroup may trim compliance positions as part of its recently announced restructuring. [more]
PCAOB Proposes New Restatement Standard for Auditors: The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has proposed a new standard that would require auditors to distinguish between a company’s financial restatements that are due to error and those that occurred because of changes in accounting principles. [more]
Tax Departments Face New Age of Global Tax Transparency: The globalization of business has challenged corporate tax departments, but charges of abuse, underreported income and questionable tax-arbitrage transactions are prompting countries' tax administrators to shift from acting unilaterally to cooperating across jurisdictions. [more]
Risk Management and IT Auditing Require Improvement: Internal audit and business and technology risk consulting provider Protiviti surveyed over 450 chief audit executives, internal audit directors, managers and other professionals and found that risk management and IT auditing are the two utmost areas in need of improvement. [more]
SEC Censures, Fines Ernst & Young for Auditor Independence Violations: For the second time in almost three years, the SEC has sanctioned Ernst & Young for alleged breaches of auditor independence rules. [more]
COSO Enlists Grant Thornton LLP for Monitoring Research: The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) has hired on Grant Thornton LLP to establish instruction to help companies both monitor internal controls and comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. [more]
General Motors Reveals Problems With Internal Controls: Buried in General Motors' March 15 10-K filing with the SEC is a disclosure that its internal controls over financial reporting are ineffective and could impede execution of its business plan, GM warned investors. [more]
Cox Rejects Calls for SOX Overhaul: SEC Chairman Christopher Cox wants to see changes in the way Sarbanes-Oxley is implemented, but he opposes weakening the law. [more]
Survey Finds Planning Is Key to E-Filing Compliance: A recent survey of 312 senior corporate tax executives has found that US companies that are obligated to e-file are spending more time and money to do so than before the IRS mandate. [more]
High Five for Section 404: Material-Weakness Reports Drop: Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 seems to be working, as the number of public US companies disclosing material weaknesses in their internal controls after year two fell 13 percent overall from the previous year. [more]
IFRS for Smaller Companies: Global accounting standards are not just for the big guys anymore. [more]
US and EU Move to End Double Auditor Inspections: If collaborative roadmap discussions launched on March 6 between the US PCAOB and the EU bear fruit, the practice of conducting inspections of one another's auditing firms -- even when the host country's oversight body has already performed that task -- could be discontinued by 2009. [more]