Audit

New guidance from Securities and Exchange Commission regulators sets limits on ways to determine the cost of stock options, though the new SEC chairman said that the report was "tentative."Chief accountant Donald Nicolaisen, who will leave the SEC in October, wrote in a statement that he had doubts as to whether the creation of a financial instrument to mimic employee stock options would be an accurate tool. And chief economist Chester Spatt wrote in a memo from the SEC's Office of Economic Analysis that such an instrument would face the inherent difficulty of reconciling market price with the fair value of stock options.

Environmentalism has arrived, and it's here to stay. And apparently the time to account for it has also come. The question is how.Many corporations have seen real, market-driven reasons to report on their environmental impact and sustainability. Consumers are paying attention. Investors are worried about what they're investing in and how environmental liabilities could impact their investments. In many countries, environmental regulation agencies are requiring some degree of reporting.

BearingPoint Inc., a spinoff of Big Four firm KPMG's former consulting business, said that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a formal investigation of the company.Along with providing an update to the progress of the company's plans to release its 2004 financial statements, BearingPoint said that the SEC has issued a formal order of investigation into the company. In a statement, BearingPoint said that it believes the matters involved are the same as the informal investigation that it announced in March.

Two state pension funds and other large investors have sued Delphi Corp. and its auditor, Deloitte & Touche, saying that the auto parts supplier made deals with third-party vendors to hide the company's financial problems.

The Securities and Exchange Commission released a request for information on interactive financial data as part of its ongoing efforts to make financial disclosure more useful and accessible to investors.

PricewaterhouseCoopers was ordered to pay $182.9 million in connection with audits it performed for Ambassador Insurance Co., more than 20 years after the company collapsed into bankruptcy.

The Louisiana Division of Administration is soliciting accounting firms to provide oversight of the federal funds received to rebuild in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Proposals are due Oct. 6.

Intuit, which is ramping up an aggressive expansion of its product line for small businesses, is also jumping into the financial planning market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged two accountants in connection with auditing the financial statements of bankrupt cable company Adelphia Communications Corp.

After agreeing to pay some $195 million in a settlement to roughly 280 investors in its tax shelters, Big Four firm KPMG is under fire again, this time from a critical inspection report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which identified a number of deficiencies in some 18 of 76 audits that it examined.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board said that it would assemble an investor task force -- a group comprised of top-level asset managers who will help advise the standard-setter on accounting issues relevant to Wall Street.

Sparked by double-digit growth in every one of its geographic regions, as well as higher results from its assurance and advisory services practice, Big Four firm Ernst & Young posted a 16 percent rise in fiscal 2005 revenues, to $16.9 billion versus the year-ago figure.

William McDonough, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, cautioned auditors not to expect lawmakers to cap liability claims until they have won back public confidence.

KPMG International has appointed company veteran Mike Wareing as global chief executive officer, effective Oct. 1.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, a unit of the International Federation of Accountants, has approved a revised standard that the governing body says will enhance audit quality via stricter requirements for documentation.

The European Parliament approved the controversial Eighth Directive, a sweeping reform measure that mandates new oversight rules for auditors.

Wolters Kluwer Corporate & Financial Services will provide the Internal Revenue Service with online access to capital gain and loss information on publicly traded securities.

Without the release of all pertinent documents by San Diego's pension board, attorney's office and firefighters union , auditor KPMG says that its review of the city's 2003 year could drag on even longer.

The Norwegian branch of KPMG International will pay $53.6 million to eight banks in order to settle damages over one of the country's worst bankruptcies.

The board of trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation appointed telecomm executive Robert J. DeSantis as president and chief operating officer.