The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday to consider adopting certain rules to implement expanded oversight and inspection for registered accounting firms’ audits of brokers and dealers.
At that meeting, the audit overseer will also mull the adoption of rules related to assessing and collecting a portion of its accounting support fees from brokers and dealers in order to fund PCAOB oversight of audits of brokers and dealers.
The PCAOB initially proposed rules on both back in December.
Section 982 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act contained a provision extending the PCAOB’s authority to inspect auditors of broker-dealers, but allowed the PCAOB to differentiate public accounting firms that issue audit reports only for one or more brokers or dealers that do not receive, handle or hold customer securities or cash, or are not a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation.
Both lawmakers and the AICPA have written to the PCAOB expressing their concerns over the extended inspections (see
Last month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., and House Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Chairman Scott Garrett, R-N.J., wrote to PCAOB Chairman James Doty inquiring about the “costs and benefits” of the proposed interim rule as it applies to auditors of introducing broker-dealers.
And back in February, AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon sent a comment letter to the PCAOB, expressing the institute’s overall support for the board’s proposed interim inspection rule, but cautioning against extending it to auditors of introducing broker-dealers.
The meeting is open to the public and will take place in the PCAOB meeting room at 1666 K St. N.W., Washington, D.C. at 9:30 a.m. It will be Webcast via a link on the PCAOB Web site, and available via podcast later in the day.
