Audit & Accounting

Consulting giant BearingPoint, which filed for Chapter 11 last month, agreed to divest several of its units to Big Four firms Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Obama administration will ask the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, to form a task force to recommend an overhaul of the tax code.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed a sweeping revamp of government regulatory powers over the nation’s financial system highlighted by establishing a single agency “with responsibility for systemic stability over the major institutions and critical payment and settlement systems and activities.”

Despite the economic slump, a high number of executives are continuing to pursue divestitures or carve-outs, according to a survey conducted by Deloitte Corporate Finance.

More than 40 percent of internal auditors within the financial services sector felt that better risk management practices could have helped prevent their organization’s current financial situation, according to a just-released study from the Institute of Internal Auditors.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did his best at filling in the blanks on the Obama administration’s plan for cleaning up the so-called “toxic assets” clogging the balance sheets of banks.

In a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner asked lawmakers to grant the Treasury Department more power to seize failing financial firms.

From Accounting Technology editor Bob Scott’s most recent popular e-letter “Consulting Insights" comes this Random Thought: “I’ve decided if I were a public official, I would run government like a business, meaning I would invest in financial instruments, treat my employees as disposable, and pay out enormous and unmerited bonuses.”

About 89 percent of the 150 audit committee members at a recent KPMG conference said that the financial crisis had caused their company’s board or audit committee to change the nature and scope of its oversight.

ADP has launched ADP Access, a retirement program that combines the benefits of ADP’s 401(k) plan recordkeeping services and the guidance of a financial advisor.