Audit

The Securities and Exchange Commission has named former Andersen partner Julie A. Erhardt to serve as deputy chief accountant.

Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers named former Andersen and BearingPoint executive Edgardo Pappacena to global strategy leader Ñ a newly created post where he will be charged with facilitating the development and execution of business, political and regulatory strategies for the firm.Prior to coming aboard at PwC, Pappacena served as a managing director and global leader of the strategic transformation practice at consulting giant BearingPoint. He also spent 24 years at Arthur Andersen, most recently as global managing partner of the firm's business consulting group."Edgardo brings a unique combination of both global client service and operating skills to this new role, and we expect that he will enhance the firm's ability to navigate our rapidly changing environment and aggressively strengthen our competitive advantage and position in the market," said Samuel DiPiazza, global chief executive at PwC.

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the sole accountant in the Senate, is spearheading a bipartisan effort to block the proposal by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to require the expensing of stock options, claiming that it would harm the small business owner.Last week, FASB said that it would delay the implementation of its options expensing proposal by six months. However, Enzi's effort wants to derail the proposal entirely.In a statement, Enzi said, "FASB is right to slow down its stock option proposal, but a delay should occur because FASB is working to test the accuracy of the evaluation formulas, not because it wants to give companies more time to prepare for implementing a flawed proposal. The development of entrepreneurial companies and the small business community should not have to absorb the shock of a proposal that has not been thoroughly tested and could cause irreversible harm."Enzi has also voiced concerns that FASB's plans for estimating the value of options are inaccurate.Enzi earlier had offered up S. 1890 -- a bill requiring options expensing only for larger companies -- but that measure has met with a cold reception from colleagues such as Senate Banking Committee chair Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill.Meanwhile, in July, the House passed H.R. 3574, a diluted options expensing measure that requires companies to expense options given to the top five executives. Supporters of FASB's expensing plan are fearful that Enzi and like-minded allies will avail themselves of FASB's six-month delay to gather enough support to kill the proposal.

The Financial Accounting Foundation, overseer of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, named former Paine Webber/UBS managing director Donald M. Young to the board of the accounting standard-setter.Young's three-year term is effective Jan. 1, 2005. He will compete the term of Gary S. Schieneman, who resigned.In addition to a five-year stint at Paine Webber/UBS, Young's resume includes two years as managing director at Prudential Securities, as well as serving as a director and senior vice president at Lehman Bros.He also held a number of marketing and finance posts at Burroughs Corp., now called Unisys Corp.

When it comes to measuring the non-financial aspects of corporate performance, most board members and executives say that companies fall short, according to a Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu survey.

Taxware, a provider of tax calculation and compliance solutions and a subsidiary of First Data Corp, has launched TaxSolver 4.2, tax return generation software with Sarbanes Oxley compliance functionality.

Members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted Wednesday to give public companies another six months to implement the board's proposed standard for expensing employee stock options.

Business Transitions LLC, a provider of online buy/sell forums for CPA and financial services practices, has added a new service to its financial services practice succession planning Web sites aimed at sole practitioners.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has released a proposed bulletin that seeks to clarify accounting requirements for employers' contributions to pension and other post-employment benefit plans.

KPMG LLP has named Bruce Pfau vice chair of human resources.

Big Four firm KPMG and its Belgian unit agreed to pay $115 million to settle a class-action shareholder lawsuit that alleged that the firm's audits of Belgium-based Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV violated generally accepted accounting and auditing principles.

Former partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young have joined with executives from Hewlett-Packard and Lucent to form a new consulting company that will focus on helping mid-market companies improve outsourcing effectiveness.

The Department of Justice charged eight former executives of software maker Peregrine Systems Inc., the company's former outside auditor and two of its outside business partners with conspiracy to commit a multi-billion dollar securities fraud.

A coalition of analysts at 17 socially responsible investment firms representing over $147 billion in assets has banded together to call on publicly traded companies worldwide to start reporting annually on their key social and environmental policies, practices and performance.

In an effort to strengthen its wealth management practice, Wachovia Corp., the nation's fifth-largest bank, agreed to acquire wealth advisory firm Tanager Financial Services Inc.

While half of them will need it at some point in their lifetime, when it comes to long-term care, most Americans get a failing grade, according to a survey conducted by MetLife.

South Carolina regulators are reportedly mulling disciplinary action against KPMG LLP over the firm's past sales of allegedly abusive tax shelters.

An astounding 93 percent of chief information officers and other senior information technology executives are unaware of their IT control assessment responsibilities under Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404, according to Obian Inc.

After three years in development, the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has released its finalized Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated Framework.

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. and former CNN chair Walter Isaacson have been named to the board of the Global Center for Leadership & Business Ethics, an independent entity established to recognize individuals and organizations with extraordinary business ethics and leadership qualities.