Audit

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced the panelists for a May 10 roundtable on Year Two experiences with the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Passage of a forthcoming European Union directive that would tighten auditing standards - but which does permit, under specified conditions, the European profession to supply customers with some other services - could lie behind a survey that reveals that the principles-based approach to auditor independence is now widely used throughout Europe.The survey was conducted by the European Federation of Accountants on the regulation of auditor independence, and follows the implementation of a 2002 EU "recommendation" on auditor independence.

Supermarket chain Ingles Markets Inc. settled charges that it improperly accounted for vendor rebates and allowances with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

KPMG moved a bit closer to putting another piece of its tax shelter troubles in the past, filing court papers that more than 200 investors have agreed to a settlement in a class-action lawsuit against the accounting firm and law firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced an effort to provide broader and more timely public notice of important actions.

Whatever happened to account aggregation?

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox has said that the agency is leaning towards opening another public-comment period on its stalled governance rules for mutual funds.

KPMG International has appointed Lord Michael Hastings to a new position as KPMG's global head of corporate social responsibility.

In an exchange of correspondence, where the irony couldn't have been not lost on any of the authors, the Government Accountability Office offered 14 recommendations to improve the internal controls of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector, composed of leaders from charitable organizations, has offered additional recommendations to Congress and the nonprofit sector as part of its continuing effort to strengthen the accountability of the nation's 1.3 million charitable organizations.

Companies are fighting more than just the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act -- according to published reports, the whistleblower protections outlined under the law are also coming under fire in court.

Reuben E. Price & Co. Public Accountancy Corp., a small firm based in San Francisco, has been censured by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for failing to take action after one of the firm's clients issued an annual report that appeared to be, but was not, audited.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the board's recommended ethics and independence rules for auditor independence, tax services and contingent fees.

PricewaterhouseCoopers announced plans to bring more than 300 new jobs to the Tampa Bay in the next two years as part of a new knowledge services organization.

The International Federation of Accountants has released its 2006 handbook of standards.

With an advisory panel poised to formally propose that the Securities and Exchange Commission relax the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for some public companies, the panel's chairman is seeing audit troubles of a company on whose board he serves dragged into the spotlight.

An independent report, backed by data from Big Four clients, shows that corporate auditing costs for Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance dropped significantly in 2005.

Investors around the globe are demanding that businesses embrace tougher corporate governance standards, according to a survey from research and consulting firm Institutional Shareholder Services.

New York State does not have a mandatory peer review process, despite the fact that 41 other states have opted into the American Institute of CPAs' nearly 30-year-old peer review program.All this may change, however, as both the New York State Society of CPAs and the AICPA have come out with proposals that urge peer review to be made part of the CPA licensing process. The New York position, in fact, goes a step further by suggesting that the process involve disciplinary teeth, as well as educational and remedial programs.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board named Laura Phillips and Jennifer Rand to the position of deputy chief auditor. Both will report to Tom Ray, the PCAOB's chief auditor and director of professional standards.A former auditor at Big Four firm Ernst & Young, Phillips, 36, joined the PCAOB staff in July 2003 and was named associate chief auditor in February 2004. She played a substantial role in developing PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 2, which implements the internal control audit requirement established by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.