The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously voted to request public comment on rules that will allow companies to use the Internet to satisfy proxy material delivery requirements.

Diane M. Rubin, a partner at San Francisco-based Novogradac & Co. LLP, was recently installed as chairwoman of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy for 2005-06.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. has again put off filing financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Giovanni Prezioso, general counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he would leave the regulator to return to a post in the private sector.

After opposition from business and the accounting profession, the International Accounting Standards Board has shelved its plans to fast-track changes to its technical corrections policy.

Yet another piece in the jigsaw of legislation controlling corporate governance, accountancy and auditing, aimed at boosting investor confidence in European Union business, is coming into focus as upgrades are being considered to the 4th and 7th Directives on risk management and internal control for unlisted companies.Those enhancements cover both off-balance-sheet arrangements and company transactions with related parties such as family members.

If the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has succeeded in doing what it set out to do, small public companies may soon have an easier time of documenting their internal controls.Back in 1992, COSO issued a set of recommendations, "Internal Control - Integrated Framework." Ten years later, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 required companies to certify the adequacy of their internal controls, and the COSO framework became a de facto standard.