Audit & Accounting

The Securities and Exchange Commission released a request for information on interactive financial data as part of its ongoing efforts to make financial disclosure more useful and accessible to investors.

PricewaterhouseCoopers was ordered to pay $182.9 million in connection with audits it performed for Ambassador Insurance Co., more than 20 years after the company collapsed into bankruptcy.

The Louisiana Division of Administration is soliciting accounting firms to provide oversight of the federal funds received to rebuild in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Proposals are due Oct. 6.

Intuit, which is ramping up an aggressive expansion of its product line for small businesses, is also jumping into the financial planning market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged two accountants in connection with auditing the financial statements of bankrupt cable company Adelphia Communications Corp.

After agreeing to pay some $195 million in a settlement to roughly 280 investors in its tax shelters, Big Four firm KPMG is under fire again, this time from a critical inspection report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which identified a number of deficiencies in some 18 of 76 audits that it examined.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board said that it would assemble an investor task force -- a group comprised of top-level asset managers who will help advise the standard-setter on accounting issues relevant to Wall Street.

Sparked by double-digit growth in every one of its geographic regions, as well as higher results from its assurance and advisory services practice, Big Four firm Ernst & Young posted a 16 percent rise in fiscal 2005 revenues, to $16.9 billion versus the year-ago figure.

William McDonough, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, cautioned auditors not to expect lawmakers to cap liability claims until they have won back public confidence.

KPMG International has appointed company veteran Mike Wareing as global chief executive officer, effective Oct. 1.