In a recent interview with Practical Accountant, Judith O’Dell, the recently-appointed chairwoman of the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee, explained the mandate that the committee will be following as it explores the need for different reporting standards for public and private companies in the following months.

The Financial Accounting Foundation said that it will give the Securities and Exchange Commission the opportunity to propose and review candidates for open positions at either the foundation, or the board the foundation oversees, the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two former in-house lawyers at Enron Corp. with securities fraud over a Brazilian scheme to move losses off the company’s balance sheet.

In a strategy designed to help modernize the business-reporting model, board members of the American Institute of CPAs’ recently restructured Center for Audit Quality will embark on a multi-city “listening tour."The aim of the tour is for members to engage investors, regulators, academics and business leaders and, subsequently, offer a series of recommendations.

The Securities and Exchange has censured Ernst & Young, ordering the Big Four firm to pay $1.6 million to settle charges of compromising its independence and contributing to faulty accounting by a client in 2001.As part of the settlement, E&Y neither admitted nor denied the agency’s allegations, made in connection with the firm’s audit work for Pittsburgh-based regional bank PNC Financial Services Group.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of the Chief Accountant has selected four professional accounting fellows to serve two-year terms beginning this summer.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. has released a second exposure draft of proposed changes to its, “Standards of Professional Conduct.”