Regulatory actions and programs

CPA firm Cottrill Arbutina Professional Services has acquired an eight-person tax and audit group from S.R. Snodgrass, expanding its reach in Western Pennsylvania and its auto dealership client base.

Companies that are the subjects of Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions for financial fraud are more than twice as likely to go bankrupt as those that are not, according a study by Deloitte Forensic Center.

For those who couldn’t find the proposed roadmap released by the SEC when they went to the Commission’s site last week, don’t blame yourself. You need an actual roadmap to find it.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing the Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the organization that develops the Firefox Web browser and Thunderbird e-mail software.

In the last of a series of roundtable discussions of mark-to-market accounting before issuing a congressionally mandated study, a panel of accounting experts told the Securities and Exchange Commission about the challenges of valuing assets in a rapidly sinking market.

Business consulting and internal audit firm Protiviti has updated its Global Financial Crisis Bulletin with answers to the latest questions about the financial meltdown.

Rand & Associates has launched a program aimed at helping small businesses weather the financial crisis.

An advocacy group plans to bring a case challenging the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to the U.S. Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled against the plaintiffs earlier this week.

MYOB has released the 2009 version of its MYOB Premier Accounting software, with extra payroll, security, search, print and spell check features for small businesses.

What better way to kick-start a customer conference in a lagging economy than to present an Olympic gold medalist as your keynote speaker?

The House Small Business Committee convened a hearing on the financial rescue program and found that $1.6 trillion in bailout funds have provided little assistance to small businesses so far.

State and local governments could take advantage of the interactive data-tagging technology that the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to require public companies to begin using for their financial filings.

The past year has seen an unprecedented amount of new tax legislation and regulations affecting business taxpayers.

At long last, the SEC has published its proposed roadmap for the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards, but the “date certain” is as uncertain as ever.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox acknowledged that the mortgage meltdown may have started in the United States, but he pointed the finger at other countries for helping create a global economic crisis.

Significant opportunities still exist for optimization of Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 programs and reductions in compliance cost, according to a new report.

In an article entitled “Address Going-Concern Issues as Early as Possible,” in Camico’s Impact Fall 2008 newsletter, the professional liability insurer offers the following advice: “Going-concern issues should be addressed as early as possible in an engagement. …. Delay makes the necessary conversations more difficult, may impair your objectivity, and usually exacerbates the problem.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has published its long-delayed roadmap for the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading charges stemming from his sale of 600,000 shares of the search engine Mamma.com.

MCGLADREY TO AUDIT JTAThe Jacksonville, Fla., office of McGladrey & Pullen has been engaged to audit the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. The JTA, in conjunction with the Florida Department of Transportation and the city of Jacksonville, develops and implements construction plans to improve traffic flow in the Jacksonville area.