Audit & Accounting

The American Institute of CPAs is holding a conference for audit committee members to make them more aware of risk management.

Accounting firm BDO Seidman said corporate executives and board members should be prepared to address various questions about the effect of the credit market crisis on their companies at their upcoming annual shareholder meetings.

Big Four firm KPMG could be sued for professional negligence for its audits of New Century Financial and for helping the troubled mortgage company devise accounting strategies to hide the problems that led to its collapse last April, according to a report from an examiner for the bankruptcy court.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said it has settled with six former executives and employees of Riverstone Networks who had been accused of inflating revenues at the communications router maker after they agreed to pay penalties and fines.

An appeals court judge has affirmed that KPMG should not be held liable for malpractice under Illinois law after one of its audit clients acquired a dot-com company and subsequently went bankrupt.

McGladrey & Pullen has been sued for $550 million by a bankruptcy trustee for Sentinel Management Group.

A jury deadlocked last week in the second trial of former Arthur Andersen partner Daniel F. Stulac over the firm's audit of Peregrine Systems.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Canadian pharmaceutical company Biovail and its former CEO and CFO and two current senior executives with engaging in fraudulent accounting schemes and making a series of misstatements to analysts and investors.

Software developer Compliance Coach introduced CompliancePal, a product intended to help businesses comply with new rules for safeguarding against identity theft.

Former KPMG tax partner Robert Pfaff has been indicted on new charges alleging he participated in a tax shelter scheme involving the Big Four firm and a company located in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands.