Accounting standards

Prosecutors unsealed indictments against former Broadcom CEO Henry T. Nicholas III and CFO William J. Ruehle on charges of stock options backdating, along with allegations that Nicholas spiked the drinks of technology executives with ecstasy and organized a lavish drug party at a warehouse.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued an exposure draft of a proposed standard on accounting for hedging activities.

Financial Executives International, a 15,000-member group of CFOs and senior-level financial executives, has formed the Corporate Roundtable on International Financial Reporting, a forum where companies can address issues related to implementing International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has released an exposure draft document offering guidance on monitoring internal control systems.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued an exposure draft of a proposed standard for expanding the required disclosures of certain loss contingencies.

The International Accounting Standards Board has formed an advisory panel to deal with the controversial topic of determining the value of financial instruments in inactive markets.

The American Institute of CPAs has issued a new standard that tightens ethics requirements for members on indemnification and limitation of liability.

An international accounting standard-setter has issued a revised set of proposals designed to strengthen the independence requirements for accountants.

A new accounting standard is giving executives second thoughts about plans for mergers and acquisitions.

The number of financial restatements finally began to decline last year after a decade-long increase and will probably continue to fall as the Securities and Exchange Commission makes it easier for companies to avoid restatements that aren't likely to greatly affect investors.

The Institute of International Finance, a global association of financial institutions, has moved to clarify its position on fair value accounting after word leaked out that it wanted to loosen the standards, provoking an outcry.

While late-year legislative changes again delayed filing for some taxpayers, the season proceeded relatively smoothly, according to veteran practitioners.“It was one of the smoothest ones I’ve had, and my colleagues say the same. In part it’s because the software is getting better,” said Holliston, Mass.-based preparer Larry Novick. “I did notice that a lot fewer of my clients claimed non-cash contributions, and the amount of collection plate contributions decreased substantially. Most of them had heard of the stricter substantiation rules.”

For those CPAs performing business valuations, January brought a new standard into their sphere, a long-awaited pronouncement that has garnered both praise and some mixed reviews.Despite the critique, most business valuation appraisers said that the American Institute of CPAs’ Statement on Standards for Valuation Services No. 1 was a long time coming, though it hasn’t drastically affected their day-to-day practices.

The American Institute of CPAs has begun publicizing the revised set of peer review standards that it quietly issued earlier this year.The new standards are designed to be more principles-based and less of a checklist-based process than older peer review standards. A key difference is the elimination of letters of comment and the old three-tier system of unmodified, modified and adverse grades given to firms by reviewers. The new standards require a simple grade of “pass,” “pass with deficiencies” or “fail.”

In a good news/bad news scenario for many publicly traded companies, a recent poll of financial executives showed that while the costs of audit fees rose in year-over-year comparisons, there was a marked decline in Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance expenses.According to a recent survey of 185 companies conducted by Financial Executives International, larger companies, or accelerated public filers — which comprised about 90 percent of the respondents — spent an average of $3.6 million on total audit fees last year, up nearly 2 percent from 2006.

With governmental accounting changing fast in a fast-changing financial environment, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board has added projects to its agenda to deal with the increasing variety of public/private partnerships, the common presentation of financial statements for reporting units that do not qualify as reporting entities, and for developments in pension accounting.The decision to review existing standards on post-employment benefits was based on an extensive research project that began in early 2006.

The May 2008 issue of The Journal of Accountancy ran opinion pieces on the role of accounting in the subprime crisis and subsequent bursting of the credit market bubble. Paul Miller was invited to comment on a controversial claim that mark-to-market practices made things worse. The critics claim that GAAP practices weakened institutions that invested in collateralized debt obligations by revealing large losses when the CDOs’ market values evaporated.They assert that financial statements would better serve the public interest if managers can keep unrealized losses (which they consider to be unreal) out of their financial statements. By a huge leap of ego, they conclude that they and everyone else would be better off if nobody is aware that those losses had occurred. After all, everyone knows they aren’t real because they are always followed by gains. Except when they aren’t, of course.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board may change some accounting rules to make it more difficult for banks to get subprime loans off their books.At an accounting conference held last month in New York, FASB Chairman Robert Herz said that the rules might require banks to keep loans on their books that they previously have been able to package and sell off or securitize.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former Ernst & Young partner, an investment banker and her father with insider trading involving information about potential M&A transactions.

The U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board said they are seeking public comment on two documents that are part of their joint project for developing an improved conceptual framework for future accounting standards.