Audit & Accounting

The Rehmann Group announced plans to merge with Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Boyes, Wright, Pittman & Co. PLLC and Traverse City, Mich.-based Weber, Curtin & Pahssen LLC, in a deal effective Jan. 1, 2007.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

An International Federation of Accountants board has issued an exposure draft of a proposed standard, “Impairment of Cash-Generating Assets.”

Former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers will join New York hedge fund firm D.E. Shaw & Co. as a part-time managing director."Larry is an enormously gifted economist and has made major contributions as a researcher, a public servant and an academic leader," David Shaw, chairman of the $25-billion fund manager, said in a statement.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that thousands of individual investors who made financial claims in the wake of the $11 billion WorldCom accounting fraud will soon receive up to $150 million from an SEC fund set up to help compensate investors for their losses.

I’ve heard it repeated time and time again that the Baby Boomers are heading for the proverbial fiscal train wreck because they are simply under funded, notwithstanding repeated warnings all over the landscape about the need to save money.

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission issued a request for proposals to develop guidance to help organizations monitor the quality of their internal control systems.

In a second October acquisition, Clifton Gunderson LLP announced that it will acquire the Schaumburg, Ill.-based firm of Nykiel, Carlin & Co. Ltd.

The Internal Revenue Service announced adjustments to the dollar limitations set for pension plans in the 2007 tax year.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued staff questions and answers about auditing the value of stock options granted to employees.The guidance provides direction for auditing a company’s estimation of the fair value of stock options granted to employees under its revised statement on share-based payments, standard, No. 123. The standard became applicable for financial statements of companies with fiscal years ending on or after June 15, 2006.

In a move that wasn’t unexpected, a judge vacated the conspiracy and fraud conviction against the late founder and former chairman of Enron Corp., Ken Lay.U.S. District Judge Sim Lake also granted the request by Lay's estate to dismiss the indictment used to bring Lay to trial. Lay died of a heart attack in early July, less than two months after a jury convicted him on six charges of conspiracy and fraud and Lake found him guilty on four charges of bank fraud.