The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that the former chief financial officer of discount retailer Dollar General Corp. will pay $1.2 million to settle charges that he engaged in accounting fraud and insider trading.

Tyco International Ltd. will pay $50 million to settle allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company inflated its earnings by more than $1 billion between 1996 and 2002.

Investors around the globe are demanding that businesses embrace tougher corporate governance standards, according to a survey from research and consulting firm Institutional Shareholder Services.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that the Securities and Exchange Commission is overstepping its bounds in seeking to punish corporate wrongdoing.In a report, the Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies for 3 million U.S. companies and 830 business associations and has been one of the commission's most vocal critics, recommended that the agency appoint an advisory committee to study its enforcement practices.

In the latest turf battle to come to light between the two groups, the American Institute of CPAs and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy skirmished over NASBA's interest in the details of public company audit inspection reports.In a recent alert sent out from the AICPA Center for Public Company Audit Firms, director Lillian Ceynowa wrote that member firms were not required to comply with inquiries from some state boards requesting the identities of individuals and companies referred to in Public Company Accounting Oversight Board inspection reports.

In a move to simplify accounting for servicing assets and liabilities, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a standard that makes it easier for mortgage bankers and other servicers of financial assets to report on the value of derivatives to offset risks associated with securitizations and other types of servicing.The new standard, SFAS 156, "Accounting for Servicing Financial Assets," amends SFAS 140, "Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and Extinguishments of Liabilities" - itself a replacement of FASB Statement No. 125. It allows servicers to choose between fair value and amortization measurements to report the value of derivatives, as well as the assets or liabilities related to them.

Sarbanes-Oxley may be helping to protect investors, but it is also hitting small public companies with a big accounting burden.The Securities and Exchange Commission established an advisory committee in April of 2005 to see how the weight of SOX could be eased for small filers. The subsequent report, issued as an exposure draft for public comment, offers several recommendations that may relieve some, though by no means all, of the burden.