Audit & Accounting

Reuben E. Price & Co. Public Accountancy Corp., a small firm based in San Francisco, has been censured by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for failing to take action after one of the firm's clients issued an annual report that appeared to be, but was not, audited.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the board's recommended ethics and independence rules for auditor independence, tax services and contingent fees.

PricewaterhouseCoopers announced plans to bring more than 300 new jobs to the Tampa Bay in the next two years as part of a new knowledge services organization.

The International Federation of Accountants has released its 2006 handbook of standards.

With an advisory panel poised to formally propose that the Securities and Exchange Commission relax the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for some public companies, the panel's chairman is seeing audit troubles of a company on whose board he serves dragged into the spotlight.

An independent report, backed by data from Big Four clients, shows that corporate auditing costs for Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance dropped significantly in 2005.

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.

New York State does not have a mandatory peer review process, despite the fact that 41 other states have opted into the American Institute of CPAs' nearly 30-year-old peer review program.All this may change, however, as both the New York State Society of CPAs and the AICPA have come out with proposals that urge peer review to be made part of the CPA licensing process. The New York position, in fact, goes a step further by suggesting that the process involve disciplinary teeth, as well as educational and remedial programs.