The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Sycamore Networks and three of its former executives with stock options backdating charges.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance has introduced SignatureCare 500, a long-term care insurance product that lets consumers customize a policy to meet their needs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission convened a roundtable of experts to discuss the controversial topic of fair value measurements in accounting.

As the final event in its year-long, 10-city dialogue tour on financial reporting issues, the Center for Audit Quality will stage its final town hall session July 22 at the National Press Club.

Three professional accounting organizations have jointly released new guidelines for combating fraud.

Outsourced accounting company Corefino has snagged $13.6 million in a first round of funding led by Opus Capital Ventures and Bay Partners.

In preparation for the eventual transition to International Financial Reporting Standards, Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has launched a suite of educational products and services to help accounting students learn IFRS fundamentals.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting released a draft of its final report.

Accounting Today is issuing a call for nominations for its annual Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting list.

Accounting firm Reznick Group has partnered with Palladium Pacific on a service to provide help to real estate lenders, investors, builders and developers with their troubled real estate assets.

Looking for strong leads to grow your financial planning practice? Try scouring your tax clients.It may seem obvious, but internal marketing within your tax base is the best way to beef up your wealth management clientele, and is often a welcome service offering that can lead to referrals.

In a high-profile consolidation in the not-for-profit software arena, NFP vendor Blackbaud struck a deal to acquire struggling rival Kintera for roughly $46 million in cash, or $1.12 per share.The deal, which Blackbaud plans to finance with cash and its credit facility, was expected to close July 2.

CFOS LACK EXPERIENCE WITH IFRSChicago — Nearly 75 percent of CFOs and senior comptrollers have no experience using International Financial Reporting Standards, while 55 percent are unfamiliar with the Extensible Business Reporting Language, according to a new survey by Grant Thornton.

TOO MANY RAID NEST EGGSRoughly one quarter of adults who are actively planning for their retirement have prematurely withdrawn from their retirement investment products, according to a Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive Personal Finance Poll that surveyed those in the 45-54 age bracket. According to the survey, the most common reasons for such premature withdrawals are a family member losing a job and the cost of a downpayment on a home. However, nearly one third of those who withdrew funds cannot pay them back, and 45 percent either cannot pay back the funds or have not begun to do so.

Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 (R), Business Combinations, issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, promises to change how companies approach planning and reporting around mergers, acquisitions and ownership changes.The statement, effective for companies with fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2008, covers how an acquirer should recognize and measure the identifiable assets acquired, liabilities assumed, and any noncontrolling interest in the acquiree; recognize and measure the goodwill acquired in the business combination or a gain from a bargain purchase; and determine what information to disclose to statement users.

Profitability and being client-focused go hand in hand. Intellectually, all accountants believe this, but they have a hard time identifying specific actions they can take to maximize both profitability and client service. Over the years, I’ve observed specific client-focused activities that correlate to firm profitability.Here are 12 specific things you can do:

Accounting firm Weaver and Tidwell has introduced a financial services niche practice aimed at investment companies, including hedge funds and private equity firms.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Microtune and two of the Plano, Texas-based technology company's former senior officers with stock options backdating.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued a new standard aimed at improving how state and local governments report information about derivative instruments in their financial statements.

U.S. corporations and accountants concerned over rising audit costs due to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements may soon have more to worry about — including another spike in audit charges as a result of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s proposed new standard for engagement quality review.The stricter standard, which was initially proposed back in February and would apply to audits of public companies performed under PCAOB standards, is risk-based and designed to ease identification and speed correction of audit deficiencies prior to issuing the auditor’s report.