Audit & Accounting

Investors punish firms that disclose internal control weakness as required by Sarbanes-Oxley provisions, but having a Big Four auditor mitigates the negative price hit, according to new research out of Indiana University.

The European Commission said that it might delay accepting U.S. accounting standards as being equivalent to those used in the European Union.

The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously voted to request public comment on rules that will allow companies to use the Internet to satisfy proxy material delivery requirements.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers has requested the dismissal of a mult-million-dollar claim filed following the bankruptcy of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities.

Diane M. Rubin, a partner at San Francisco-based Novogradac & Co. LLP, was recently installed as chairwoman of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy for 2005-06.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. has again put off filing financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Giovanni Prezioso, general counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he would leave the regulator to return to a post in the private sector.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Grant Thornton International, along with Bank of America, have been named as defendants in two lawsuits seeking almost $1 billion for a trio of Cayman Islands companies.

After opposition from business and the accounting profession, the International Accounting Standards Board has shelved its plans to fast-track changes to its technical corrections policy.

Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and its global network reported combined member firm revenues of $20.3 billion for the year ended June 30, 2005, a nearly 17 percent rise in U.S. dollars versus the previous year.In local currencies, the firm's growth was about 12 percent. Excluding expenses reimbursed by clients, net aggregate revenues for the global network were $19 billion in U.S. dollars.