Audit & Accounting

Executives contemplating cross-border transactions in emerging markets view local legal, tax and accounting systems as the biggest challenges to completing a transaction, according to a poll conducted by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP.

A handful of boldface names from the financial world lent their signatures to a letter to federal regulators, asking that no public company be exempted from the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

More than three years after it's original passage, but still in the infancy of its implementation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is facing attacks on a number of fronts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced it will charge two KPMG auditors for failing to act on a number of red flags that could have caught an estimated $30 billion accounting fraud sooner.

The International Federation of Accountants is seeking nominations for a public member for the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants and for the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, two independent standard-setting boards within the federation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will sponsor a roundtable on May 10 in Washington to discuss second-year experiences with the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

The Financial Accountant Standards Board issued a final standard aimed at improving the financial reporting of certain hybrid financial instruments by requiring more consistent accounting and eliminating exemptions.

China will adopt International Financial Reporting Standards by Jan. 1, 2007, the country's minister of finance announced.

Risk management and compliance software provider Movaris has joined XBRL International -- the nonprofit consortium of roughly 350 companies working toward the development and support of the Extensible Business Reporting Language.

The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business will offer a weekend executive master of science in accounting, featuring a unique internal auditing focus.