Audit

The Securities and Exchange Commission strongly objected to a statement by Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche regarding settlements the audit firm entered into with the commission to resolve charges related to two of Deloitte's former audit clients.

In an attempt to clear its ruined name, Arthur Andersen LLP made its plea to the Supreme Court Wednesday for a reversal of the firm's 2002 conviction for obstruction of justice in the Enron Corp. case.

KPMG's U.S. business has offered to publish annual accounts if lawmakers provide auditors with protection against potentially catastrophic negligence claims, according to a published report.

A district court judge here gave the okay to a settlement in which Arthur Andersen agreed to pay $65 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by WorldCom investors who alleged that the audit firm failed to protect them by not uncovering the $11 billion fraud at the telecommunications company.

Deloitte & Touche LLP agreed to pay more than $50 million to settle charges brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to two of its former audit clients.

Arthur Andersen LLP, the last remaining defendant in an investor lawsuit stemming from WorldCom Inc.'s 2002 collapse, agreed to settle its liability in the case for an undisclosed sum, putting an end to the largest securities fraud class action in U.S. history.

The Government Accountability Office has issued extensive new guidance for auditors and audit organizations in implementing revised continuing professional education requirements for those conducting so-called "Yellow Book" audits.

The chief financial officer of a popular steakhouse chain has called it quits, citing the negative regulatory environment, including what he referred to as "lunacy over lease accounting."

BearingPoint, the consultancy formerly tied to accounting firm KPMG, disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an informal probe into the company's accounting practices.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of the Chief Accountant has selected two professional accounting fellows for two-year terms beginning in June 2005.

Despite dire predictions by critics of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that the accounting reform law would freeze smaller CPA firms out of the audit business, just the opposite appears to be happening, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chairman William J. McDonough told Congress.

The Government Accountability Office's quality assurance system has received a clean audit opinion from an international peer review team.

The New York State Society of CPAs has launched "CPAs on Boards," a state-wide program that links CPAs with nonprofit organizations looking for financial experts to add to their boards of directors.

Grant Thornton executives this week urged regulators, public company boards and executives, and auditors to move to protect capital markets and investors by taking steps to increase choice and competition for public companies and auditors.

Companies that limit Sarbanes-Oxley reviews to a small group of senior management have worse performance records compared with those that involve much of the organization in their review process, according to a report by research firm AberdeenGroup.

The Professional Ethics Executive Committee of the American Institute of CPAs has proposed in an exposure draft a new ethics interpretation of rules to determine whether financial interests held by a company's external auditor impair independence.

Big Four firm KPMG LLP has agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle charges brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its audits of Xerox Corp. from 1997 through 2000.

The American College, based here, and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors have partnered to create the Financial Services Specialist designation, a new financial planning credential.

Audits have gotten more complicated, and that means more auditors will be using more specialists. But what qualifications does a specialist need to be entrusted with a role in an audit?

Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement director Stephen M. Cutler, whose tenure included investigations of some of the largest financial reporting failures in the nation's history, is leaving the commission next month to return to the private sector, the agency said. The agency has not yet named a successor.