Audit & Accounting

CPA firm Eide Bailly plans to merge with Murrell, Hall, McIntosh & Co., expanding its staff to over 1,000 and providing combined revenue of $123 million.

The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to hold a roundtable discussion on Aug. 4 to compare the performance of International Financial Reporting Standards and U.S. generally accepted accounting principles during the recent period of market turmoil caused by the subprime loan crisis.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has adopted rules and a related form to govern when a firm would be allowed to succeed to the registration status of a predecessor firm following a merger or other change in the registered firm's legal status.

KPMG has released a study that ranks cities with the most favorable tax structures for business.

BDO Seidman reported that its annual revenue increased 11.9 percent to $659 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008 from $589 million the previous fiscal year.

Accounting firm Burr Pilger Mayer has introduced an employee stock ownership plan that it is offering to all of its 325 employees.

Georgia's Court of Appeals upheld a $10 million jury verdict against Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of four family trusts. In 2007, a jury in Cobb County found the audit firm liable for negligent misrepresentation in a series of financial audits of a nursing home conglomerate. In 1995, Georgia businessmen and brothers Stiles A. Kellett Jr. and Samuel B. Kellett had merged their Marietta, Ga.-based nursing home, Convalescent Services, with the larger Mariner Health Group. Six years ago, the Kelletts, two of their limited liability partnerships and four Kellett family trusts sued PwC and three former senior executives of Mariner Health, charging that the defendants engaged in fraud that ultimately cost the Kelletts more than $126 million in stock losses. In the suit, the Kelletts sought more than $400 million and to prevent PwC from doing business in the state of Georgia. The litigation charged that Coopers & Lybrand, the precursor firm to PwC, had generated inaccurate financials on Mariner that overstated earnings and understated liabilities. The Kelletts claimed that the misstatements persuaded them that the merger would be a profitable one.

Conrad Hewitt joined the Securities and Exchange Commission as chief accountant in August 2006. Hewitt is charged with establishing and enforcing accounting and auditing policy to enhance the transparency and relevancy of financial reporting at the SEC. His office also aims to improve the professional performance of public company auditors in order to ensure that financial statements used for investment decisions are presented fairly and have credibility. Lately he has been much involved with planning for the transition from U.S. accounting standards to international standards. WebCPA talked with him and his department's chief legal counsel, Jeff Minton, about the convergence of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board plans to consider adopting rules on succession to a predecessor's registration status. The PCAOB has scheduled an open meeting for Tuesday, July 29, at 9:30 am in the board's open meeting room at 1666 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. The board will consider adopting rules and a corresponding form that govern when a firm would be allowed to succeed to the registration status of a predecessor firm following a merger or other change in the registered firm's legal form. The meeting will be open to the public and Webcast via a link on the PCAOB's Web site (www.pcaobus.org) that will be made available the day of the meeting. The meeting also will be available via podcast later in the day.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve are each pushing to gain regulatory authority over investment banks. At a hearing on Capitol Hill, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox and New York Federal Reserve President Timothy F. Geithner each outlined plans for the monitoring of commercial and investment banks. Both laid blame for the "patchwork" of regulatory agencies in lieu of one overseer for much of the current roiling of the financial markets. Cox urged lawmakers to give his agency responsibility over investment banks pointing out that the commission currently has authority over the markets in which they operate. Earlier this year, the Treasury Department proposed merging the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission into a single entity while expanding the oversight capacity of the Federal Reserve.