Carol Stacey, former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance, has become vice president of The SEC Institute, an organization that holds conferences and workshops around the country to explain SEC and PCAOB rules and regulations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the former chairman and CEO of Brooks Automation, Robert J. Therrien, with allegedly receiving over $10.4 million in undisclosed compensation by fraudulently backdating stock options.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's new internal control auditing standard, known as AS5, by a 5-0 vote.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed a new ethics rule on communicating with audit committees concerning independence.

Significant internal control weaknesses remain in the preparation of the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

India plans to bring its accounting standards in line with International Financial Reporting Standards by April 1, 2011.

In a major step toward an eventual convergence of accounting standards, the Securities and Exchange Commission put out a proposal to allow non-U.S. companies that list on U.S. exchanges to reconcile their financials using International Financial Reporting Standards, instead of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.The measure, according to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, is a movement to have all companies "speak the same language," while serving to attract more international companies to U.S. markets. Business leaders have complained that investors are bypassing the U.S. in favor of London and Hong Kong as a result of over-regulation and the costs of having to file in two sets of accounting rules.