Audit & Accounting

We all want to do more productive, efficient work.

Japanese electronics giant NEC has settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over charges that it improperly booked revenue from its customer contracts and did not maintain accurate books and records, causing the company to miss filing financial statements two years in a row.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a one-year extension of the compliance date for smaller public companies to meet the Section 404(b) auditor attestation requirement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

FiveStar3 has acquired the Alliance of Professional Associations, a national association management company for accounting firms.

Try this on for size. A new study shows that of some one million 401(k) portfolios, some 69 percent of participants have portfolios with inappropriate risk or diversification, 36 percent hold high concentrations of company stock, and 33 percent fail to contribute enough to receive the full company match. While groups of participants are taking full advantage of their 401(k) plans, participants with lower salaries, lower plan balances, and those closer to retirement tend to make the most costly mistakes.

Cohen & Co. has acquired Mercurio & Bridgford, expanding the Ohio-based firm's presence in Florida.

A jury awarded investors approximately $58 million in a lawsuit against a former Oregon Republican Party chairman who was accused of defrauding three venture capital funds he founded, and the funds' now-defunct accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.

Financial regulators from around the world are setting up a monitoring group that will work with international accounting standards-setters.

The labor union Unite Here has started a Web site to provide information about the progress of a class-action lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers over the firm's overtime policies.

Citigroup settled a longstanding civil complaint from the Securities and Exchange Commission over improper accounting during the economic crisis in Argentina in late 2001.