Regulatory actions and programs

Two former CFOs of a Silicon Valley technology company have agreed to return nearly a half-million dollars in bonuses and stock sale profits they received while their company was committing accounting fraud, in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has imposed sanctions against four China-based accounting firms that had until recently refused to turn over documents related to investigations of potential accounting fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Wednesday to approve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s 2015 budget and annual accounting support fee, which were both lower than last year.

Top eight to-do's for the new chief accountant

A district court in Hawaii has entered a final judgment against the chief executive of a religious-themed video game company, Left Behind Games, for a multimillion-dollar scheme to boost his company’s revenues with part of his stock-trading profits.

The first five inspections of broker-dealer audit and new attestation engagements subject to PCAOB standards show deficiencies in the auditors' application of those standards.

The clawbacks on executive compensation mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act may discourage one type of accounting manipulation only to encourage another, according to a new study.

J Sainsbury Plc will appoint Ernst & Young LLP as auditor, ending a relationship with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC dating back about two decades.

Amazon.com Inc.’s hastily reviewed tax deal with Luxembourg doesn’t comply with international accounting standards, European Union regulators said.

The House voted Wednesday to approve legislation rolling back a variety of financial regulations on business, including a requirement for companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue to file their financials in Extensible Business Reporting Language format with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The House fell only a few votes short of rolling back a requirement for companies with annual revenue below $250 million from filing their financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the data-tagged Extensible Business Reporting Language format.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has updated its standard-setting agenda after undergoing criticism that it is not moving faster on releasing new standards.

Regulation of the CPA profession in the U.S. needs a transformation. Mind you now, not a change—a transformation. Yes—a major overhaul.

A roundup of audit and attest news from the past month.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a pilot program aimed at simplifying investor analysis and comparisons of public company financial statement data using Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, and other types of data.

Computer Sciences Corp. reached a proposed settlement with the SEC over an accounting probe, agreeing to pay $190 million and adjust its financial statements.

Internal audit as a line of defense against inappropriate levels of risk is a time-honored concept in the U.K., South Africa and Australia that is now becoming a popular paradigm in the U.S.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has released a strategy and work plan for improving audit quality in the new few years.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has released guidance to improve the way private companies account for intangible assets in a business combination.

In early 2014, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the U.S. announced that it was officially abandoning its pursuit of mandatory audit rotation—the somewhat controversial practice that requires publicly traded companies to change their auditor after a designated number of years.