- Senator Calls for Review of SEC Operations
The tables have turned, the shoe is on the other foot, turnabout is fair play, what's good for the goose -- pick your favorite idiom -- but for once, it's not the SEC inquiring into a public company's management and methods. [more]
- Study Reveals Leading Ethics Topics
Corporate ethics and compliance training firm Integrity Interactive has announced the results of a study of millions of employee compliance-training records that reveals the top ethics and compliance-training topics addressed by major corporations today. [more]
- Will Elections Determine the Future of SOX?
Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley will be gone with the midterm elections, and many critics of the law that bears their name are hoping that Congress will make substantial changes to ease the law's requirements next year. [more]
- No End in Sight for Backdating Scandal
Post-Enron corporate governance reforms should have put a halt to stock option backdating, but a just-released analysis by proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. [more]
- Updating Whistle-Blowing Mechanisms
There's still some speculation about whether the accounting improprieties at Enron and WorldCom could have been nipped in the bud if a well-designed whistleblower complaint-reporting process had been in place at these companies. [more]
- Is SOX a Dead End for America?
Paul Sharman, president and CEO of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), thinks it has the potential to be. [more]
- Skilling Gets 25 Years
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was sentenced yesterday on fraud and conspiracy charges to 24 years and four months in prison, although he maintained his innocence and said he would appeal the ruling. [more]
- PCAOB Issues Guidance on Auditing Fair Value of Stock Options
Last week, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued staff questions and answers about auditing the fair value of share options granted to employees, providing direction for auditing a company's estimation of the fair value of stock options. [more]
- Bush Signs Financial Services Relief Act
In recent years, new bills inevitably have meant more work for CPAs, but public accountants have finally gotten some good news -- effective immediately they are exempt from sending Gramm-Leach-Bliley privacy notices. [more]
- Small Firms Making More Restatements
The number of restatements made in the first half of 2006 rose 14 percent from early 2005, but the number of restatements made by large accounting firms has actually dropped. [more]
- FASB Proposals Improve M&A Accounting Guidance for Nonprofits
Recent studies estimate that the total asset base of the United States' not-for-profit sector would make it the sixth largest economy in the world. [more]
- Skilling Asks Judge to Overturn Verdict (Again)
Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey K. [more]
- Michael Oxley: "We Did a Good Job"
- At the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference last week, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Michael Oxley defended the legislation he crafted with Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes four years ago, saying, "We did a good job, all things considered. [more]
- Bankers Warn Senate, House: Simplify U.S. Capital Regulations
- As U.S. regulators prepare to implement the Basel II Capital Accord, the financial services industry is becoming increasingly nervous that overly restrictive rules -- i.e., more rigid than those currently in effect in Europe and Asia -- will render U.S. [more]
- IMA Management Accounting Statements Now Available to the Public
- The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) has reintroduced its Statements on Management Accounting (SMAs), which present the views of IMA (and a wealth of information) regarding management accounting and financial management issues. [more]
- Account Reconciliations: An Underutilized Internal Control?
- Since the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, performing account reconciliations before filing SEC reports has become much more important in helping companies avoid potential material misstatements. [more]
- 4 of 5 Executives Considering Outsourcing Pension Plans
- Pension "reform" is fueling the growth of plan management outsourcing -- a market that's already growing like crazy. [more]
- How BPM Bolsters Compliance
Some companies that use business performance management (BPM) software say they spend less on compliance than they would without BPM. [more]
- PCAOB's Niemeier: "There's Nothing New in Sarbanes-Oxley"
- WebCPA.com editor Alicia Korney has published a pair of short articles (If SOX Were a Tree and In Some Ways, SOX Inevitable) analyzing Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) member Charles Niemeier's speech at the New York State Society of CPAs' annual Sarbanes-Oxley conference last week. [more]
- Reflections on IFRS: "International GAAP" Gets Underway
- More than 8,000 listed companies in the European Union applied International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in their financial statements last year -- most for the first time. [more]
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