Audit

Firm News - February 10

Diamond Foods Inc removed top management after a probe by its audit committee found that the company improperly accounted for payments to walnut growers, sending its shares down 40 percent in after-hours trading.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has imposed a $2 million civil penalty against Ernst & Young, the largest civil money penalty to date in the PCAOB’s 10-year history, and censured the firm for audit failure, while sanctioning four of E&Y’s current and former partners.

Professional accountants need to respond to increasing demand from investors for non-financial information, specifically environmental, social and governance disclosures, according to a new report.

The Center for Audit Quality has released its second video featuring hard-boiled external auditor, Ledger Lines, to explain how auditing works.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has named Jeanette M. Franzel, a managing director of the Government Accountability Office, as a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Firm News - Feb. 3

STANDARD FOR UNCERTAIN TAX POSITIONS NEEDS TWEAKING

We all face numbers, sometimes on a daily basis.

We're drafting this column in January, when many were surely puzzling over Securities and Exchange Commission Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker's December announcement that the commission would not, after all, decide by year end whether the International Accounting Standards Board and International Financial Reporting Standards would replace the Financial Accounting Standards Board and U.S. GAAP.

The American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants formally launched their Chartered Global Management Accountant designation on Tuesday with a joint event in New York and London.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Private Company Financial Reporting has recognized that there are many issues in the way private companies and small businesses use GAAP.

Auditor reports are oftentimes misinterpreted, misread or not read at all, according to a new study that calls for significant changes in the reports.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board said Friday they would work together on seeking to reduce the differences in their classification and measurement models for financial instruments.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed an updated standard on impairment testing of intangible assets with indefinite lives, such as trademarks, licenses and distribution lives.

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and the American Institute of CPAs have both given their final approval to a revised set of standards for providers of continuing professional education programs for accountants.

International Accounting Standards Board chairman Hans Hoogervorst told attendees at an accounting conference in Moscow on Monday that he believes the U.S. will ultimately decide to support International Financial Reporting Standards.

The American Institute of CPAs has begun offering a revenue-sharing arrangement to state CPA societies if they help market the new Chartered Global Management Accountant designation to their members.

European Commission plans to bring the European Union into line with the possibly less stringent Sarbanes-Oxley measures to ban audit firms from offering tax and other non-audit services to audit clients are facing controversy as the issue moves to the European Parliament.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is continuing to prod officials in Washington for the power to make public its disciplinary proceedings against auditing firms and auditors.