Audit & Accounting

In a report, Australia's auditor-general has criticized poor accounting methods in the country's Defense Department for making it impossible to vouch for more than $4 billion in financial statements.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has told a federal judge the Justice Department was too lenient in striking a plea deal with the former chief executive of Gemstar-TV Guide International.

NASD, the regulator for the brokerage industry, said that fines as a result of disciplinary actions it meted out have risen 21 percent, to $125.4 million versus the prior year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has subpoenaed more than a dozen current and former Delphi executives to testify about improper accounting at the bankrupt auto supplier, according to published reports.

Boom may be too strong an adjective, if only because the continuing good fortune for the Big Four has been so steady in recent year-end results.

Regulators are considering liquidating a unit of brokerage firm Refco Inc. that isn't under bankruptcy-court protection.

Timothy P. Flynn, chairman and chief executive of Big Four firm KPMG, has been appointed to the board of the Financial Accounting Foundation.

Lawrence A. West, associate director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement, will depart the regulator to become a partner at the Washington office of Latham & Watkins.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, the standard-setting body of the International Federation of Accountants, is seeking a chairperson for a three-year term beginning in January 2007.

Many large and midsized companies, which are required by the Internal Revenue Service to file their 2005 taxes electronically next year, have not begun preparing for the change, according to a recent poll conducted by Big Four firm KPMG.