PCAOB SANCTIONS FIRM AND CPA FOR CHINA AUDITS

Washington, D.C. -- The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in late May revoked the registation of an Upstate New York firm for relying on outside firms in China and Taiwan to audit three companies in those countries while exercising little supervision.

The PCAOB imposed the sanctions against Buffalo-based Brock, Schechter & Polakoff LLP, censuring the firm and imposing a civil penalty of $20,000. In addition, the board censured James R. Waggoner, CPA, the firm's former director of accounting and auditing, and barred him from being associated with a PCAOB-registered firm. BSP confirmed that Waggoner is no longer employed there.

According to the PCAOB, BSP began auditing companies in China and Taiwan in 2006, even though the firm had no prior experience auditing public companies using PCAOB standards, nor any experience auditing companies based in either country. The firm did not even have any staff with the ability to speak or understand Chinese.

A partner of the firm issued a statement saying that BSP had previously decided to get out of the business of auditing Chinese and Taiwanese companies, and that the work never amounted to more than 1 percent of its client base.

GASB OFFERS FREE DOWNLOADS

Norwalk, Conn. -- Final statements and certain other pronouncements issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board will now be available for downloading at no cost on its Web site. GASB's parent, the Financial Accounting Foundation, said that the available documents would include GASB statements, concept statements, interpretations, and technical bulletins, posted as PDF files in their original form. This follows the establishment of a support fee to fund the annual budget of GASB pursuant to rulemaking under Section 978 of the Dodd-Frank Act. In the months ahead, the FAF plans to consider whether other GASB materials should be available online at no cost. GASB still plans to continue its other fee-based offerings.