Audit & Accounting

Charles “Chuck” Allen has worked for the accounting firm Crowe Chizek for his entire career. Fresh out of college as a campus recruit, he joined the firm in 1975. In April of this year, the 53-year-old became CEO of Crowe Group, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based firm’s parent company, succeeding two-term CEO Mark Hildebrand. Before becoming CEO, Allen served as managing executive of Crowe’s commercial services group. During his career, he has concentrated on assisting private investors with acquiring and financing companies and establishing a private equity group client base. He talked with WebCPA about his plans for broadening the Midwestern firm’s national footprint, the recent challenges facing the accounting and private equity industries, and his firm’s efforts at recruitment and retention.

Accounting firms Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Grant Thornton were among those named in a $2 billion lawsuit filed by representatives of the creditors of bankrupt financial company Refco.

British firm Bentley Jennison has joined the RSM International network of audit, tax and consulting firms, expanding RSM’s reach abroad.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun asking for comments on a document that outlines a variety of proposed changes in the way companies do their financial reporting.

The American Institute of CPAs’ professional ethics division has issued a proposal that would outline the independence requirements of CPA firm networks and associations.

The International Federation of Accountants has released a paper describing the experiences of 10 senior-level accountants with establishing effective internal control systems inside businesses.

The American Institute of CPAs presented awards to 10 budding CPAs who achieved the highest cumulative scores last year on the four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination.

If forensic accounting is sexy, litigation support is hot - and CPAs who offer these specialty services are finding their firms' business boiling over into new areas.Being retained by legal counsel to give an expert opinion is at the core of litigation support, a subset of forensic accounting. The two fast-growing niches are very much related, but experts say that forensic accounting is more of an umbrella term that encompasses litigation support.

NEOPHARM RETAINS BDO SEIDMANPharmaceutical concern NeoPharm Inc., a marketer of cancer treatment drugs, has engaged BDO Seidman as its new independent accountant, succeeding Big Four firm KPMG.

Two years ago, we criticized the Financial Accounting Standards Board for publishing an exposure draft that proposed doing away with the Rule 203 exceptions that permit, and even encourage, departures from generally accepted accounting principles when compliance would produce misleading financial statements. Underlying this proposed action was a presumption that compliance with published GAAP always leads to relevant and reliable information. Back then we prepared a series of columns describing the intolerable flaws in this premise.The first two focused on how essential it is to allow Rule 203 exceptions to foster innovations when the old ways can no longer be considered adequate.