Audit & Accounting

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the former chairman and CEO of Brooks Automation, Robert J. Therrien, with allegedly receiving over $10.4 million in undisclosed compensation by fraudulently backdating stock options.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's new internal control auditing standard, known as AS5, by a 5-0 vote.

Accounting firm BDO Seidman saw its revenue increase $31 million to $589 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed a new ethics rule on communicating with audit committees concerning independence.

United States v. Stein, a U.S. District Court for the Southern District Court opinion (July 17, 2007) by District Judge Lewis Kaplan, is fascinating reading, and may have significant implications for a number of firms.

LogicManager released an upgrade to its LogicERM enterprise risk management software that takes advantage of the new AS5 risk-based audit standard.

Significant internal control weaknesses remain in the preparation of the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

India plans to bring its accounting standards in line with International Financial Reporting Standards by April 1, 2011.

DREAMS INC. ENGAGES FRIEDMAN COHENSports memorabilia and licensing concern Dreams Inc. has named Friedman, Cohen, Taubman & Co. as its auditor.

With the exploding interest in and acceptance for market-value-based information in financial statements, we thought we would rerun a couple of columns from several years back as part of our summer tradition.This one was published in spring 2001, and talks about the hole in generally accepted accounting principles, even value-based GAAP, that continues to insist that there is a difference between unrealized and realized gains and losses. At the heart of this anachronistic practice is confusion between income and cash flows, which are two different things best described in two different financial statements.