Audit

Negotiations are continuing between federal prosecutors and KPMG, and an indictment of the firm for its role in selling tax shelters appears to have been ruled out, according to published reports.

Management consulting firm Navigant Consulting Inc. will acquire Canadian forensic accounting practice Kroll Lindquist Avey for $20 million.

An independent committee has finished its report into accounting practices at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc., and the country's second-largest doughnut chain has announced plans to reduce past income statements by more than $25 million.

United Rentals Inc. will hold off on finalizing its recent earnings statements until it finishes an accounting inquiry and restates more than three years of results.

Convergys Corp., a provider of customer care, human resources and billing services, completed its acquisition of the finance and accounting business process outsourcing line of Deloitte Consulting Outsourcing LLC, a subsidiary of Deloitte Consulting LLP.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has broadened its four-month-old voluntary Extensible Business Reporting Language filing program to allow mutual funds to file exhibits to their annual report to shareholders and quarterly statements of portfolio holdings using XBRL.

Sandra Harris, who co-headed the Securities and Exchange Commission's Pacific Regional Office for more than 10 years, said that she will leave the regulator for a post in the private sector, though she has yet to announce the specifics of the new job.

Over the last month, at least a handful of lengthy feature stories have come my way about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts -- but the same can't be said about coverage of President Bush's other summertime nominee, Christopher Cox, who was sworn in as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 3.

Auto-parts manufacturer Visteon Corp. expects to report a loss of $1.2 billion in its second quarter after reducing the value of assets it will transfer to Ford Motor Co.

The Governmental Accounting Standard Board recently published a guide to its statements 43 and 45, both which address post-employment benefits besides pensions.

PricewaterhouseCoopers plans to fight a $120 million jury award to creditors of defunct Ambassador Insurance Co.

In a memo to federal regulators, lawyers for American International Group Inc.'s former chief executive outlined a case that the company's $3.9 billion earnings restatement was unnecessary and that any blame lay with its auditor of the past two decades, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Financial Reporting Review Panel, one of Britain's audit watchdogs, released its first report into the United Kingdom's accounting principles, saying it found "no evidence of systemic weakness."

The administrators of a Utah college savings plan have settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission for issuing false and misleading information, though the fund's former director will be charged with misappropriating funds.

Federal prosecutors have notified as many as 20 former partners at Big Four firm KPMG LLP that they may face criminal charges for selling illegal tax shelters.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's advisory committee on smaller public companies has published a series of questions to solicit public input from investors and companies on ways to improve the current regulatory system for smaller companies and to examine the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Software manufacturer Computer Associates International Inc. has hired Marc Loupé, formerly a vice president of finance with Sun Microsystems, as a senior vice president and internal audit head.

Tax preparation giant H&R Block Inc. has said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it overstated net income for 2003 and 2004 by $91.1 million, due mostly to accounting errors.

Tax preparation giant H&R Block Inc. will acquire the Tax & Business Services division of American Express, creating a combined firm with more than 5,000 employees and generating more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

California Republican Rep. Christopher Cox will serve as the new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, after the Senate confirmed President Bush's pick alongside Democrats Roel Campos and Annette Nazareth, who will round out the five-member panel.