Audit

Ernst & Young warned some Bay Area clients that it had lost some sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, which could be possibly be used by identity thieves.

In mid-January, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued reports on its 2004 inspections of Grant Thornton LLP and Crowe Chizek & Co. LLC - outlining "audit deficiencies" similar to other recently released reviews from the board.In its Grant Thornton inspection report, released on January 19, the board highlighted problems that it found in audits for 15 of the firm's public company clients between May and October 2004. The problems included failure to disclose related-party transactions and testing of information technology controls, as well as accounting problems for:

BROOKLYN FEDERAL JETTISONS KPMG: Brooklyn Federal Bancorp, the parent to Brooklyn Federal Savings Bank, dismissed its auditor, Big Four firm KPMG, and retained Beard Miller Co. as its replacement.According to a federal filing, KPMG's audit reports on Brooklyn Federal's financials didn't contain any adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion. There were no disagreements between KPMG and the company over accounting matters.

When the Auditing Standards Board met in mid-January, it resolved to propose a new standard on auditor communication. The board also started a discussion on whether quality control should be linked to compensation control.While the proposal on communication was the biggest product of the meeting, the concept of a cause-and-effect connection between auditor compensation and audit quality may ultimately have greater reverberations in the profession.

KPMG is looking for participants for the second annual Section 404 Benchmark Survey run under the firm's 404 Institute.

Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations forum in New York a day after the advisory panel's decision, f our former chairmen of the SEC all argued against exempting any companies from the internal controls provisions, according to reports.

After more than two years of legal maneuvering, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled the last of its charges in its investigation of Xerox Corp.'s alleged earnings manipulation.

Executives contemplating cross-border transactions in emerging markets view local legal, tax and accounting systems as the biggest challenges to completing a transaction, according to a poll conducted by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP.

A handful of boldface names from the financial world lent their signatures to a letter to federal regulators, asking that no public company be exempted from the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

More than three years after it's original passage, but still in the infancy of its implementation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is facing attacks on a number of fronts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced it will charge two KPMG auditors for failing to act on a number of red flags that could have caught an estimated $30 billion accounting fraud sooner.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will sponsor a roundtable on May 10 in Washington to discuss second-year experiences with the internal controls provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

The Financial Accountant Standards Board issued a final standard aimed at improving the financial reporting of certain hybrid financial instruments by requiring more consistent accounting and eliminating exemptions.

Risk management and compliance software provider Movaris has joined XBRL International -- the nonprofit consortium of roughly 350 companies working toward the development and support of the Extensible Business Reporting Language.

The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business will offer a weekend executive master of science in accounting, featuring a unique internal auditing focus.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 4 -- "Reporting on Whether a Previously Reported Material Weakness Continues to Exist."

TVIA INC. DISMISSES PWC: Tvia, a designer and marketer of semiconductor systems, has dismissed auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers and engaged BDO Seidman as its replacement.According to a federal filing, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Tvia had no disagreements with its former auditor on accounting issues, and no reason was given for the change in independent accountants.

Many of the 19 former tax professionals facing trial over the sale of KPMG tax shelters, whose legality has been questioned by the federal government, have asked for the dismissal of the charges in a variety of joint motions.More than 25 motions were filed in Manhattan's U.S. District Court, several requesting that the charges against the professionals be dropped entirely, as no court has ever actually ruled the shelters to be illegal. Many additional motions asked for the dismissal of charges because the defendants said that they were being unfairly singled out from other KPMG officials who sold similar shelters.

The Securities and Exchange Commission named John W. White to the post of director of the regulator's division of corporate finance.

Approval of the $195 million settlement between KPMG and investors in possibly illegal tax shelters has stalled, as the sides reportedly renegotiate the terms of the deal.