Regulatory actions and programs

Big Four accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP and Reliant Energy Inc. will pay $75 million to settle shareholder class-action lawsuits that alleged that the electric company engaged in illegal trading to boost its stock value during the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001.

In a close vote along party lines, the Senate Banking Committee approved a bill to increase oversight of mortgage financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as reduce their combined $1.5 trillion investment portfolios by about $600 billion.

As expected, the Senate Banking Committee voted Thursday to recommend confirmation of President Bush's three nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

New York officials have reached a settlement with the final trio of former WorldCom executives named in a shareholder lawsuit.

A former executive at telecommunications company Qwest Communications International Inc. will pay $2.1 million to settle civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Casey allegedly backdated contracts allowing Qwest to immediately recognize revenue it would not receive until later.

Gerber Scientific Inc. announced Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ended an investigation into accounting irregularities at the maker of industrial manufacturing equipment.

Much has changed at J.H. Cohn from its start 85 years ago in Newark, N.J., to its current status as one of the largest independent accounting firms in the country with offices in New York, New Jersey, California and the Cayman Islands.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board adopted new ethics and independence rules for auditors on Tuesday that place clear limits on the ability of accounting firms to offer tax services to their audit clients.

SLM Corp., the parent company of student loan lender Sallie Mae, said Monday that it had fired the subsidiary's chief financial officer and disciplined several other executives after finishing an internal accounting investigation.

Risk consulting and internal audit services provider Protiviti Inc. acquired Philadelphia-based Lender Advisory Services, a unit of national CPA firm RSM McGladrey.

Property and casualty insurance company Ace Ltd said last week that it will restate five years of financial results after an internal investigation into its reininsurance contracts.

Lawyers for former HealthSouth Corp. chief executive Richard Scrushy have filed a motion in U.S. District Court to dismiss the civil charges recently filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has named Rob Ward to head its global assurance practice - the company's largest line of service. Ward had previously served as deputy global assurance leader and will succeed Gerald Ward (no relation), who is retiring after more than 30 years of service.

In today's post-Sarbanes-Oxley corporate environment, all companies face heightened scrutiny and increased reporting responsibilities for corporate wrongdoing. However, they also now have the benefit of the new confidential reporting mechanisms to assist in uncovering and investigating potential and actual misconduct.As a result, more companies will be confronted with the need to undertake internal investigations to verify and determine the extent of the wrongdoing. For better or for worse, corporate internal investigations have become a necessary part of doing business - and companies must know how to conduct them.

CPAmerica International has created a Sarbanes-Oxley national service team, consisting of experts from large independent CPA firms across the country. The team will provide consulting services for member firms whose clients are publicly held companies.

If corporate accountants got the chance to blow out the candles on the Sarbanes-Oxley birthday cake, they'd probably wish the birthday boy would go away.

Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche and international firm Grant Thornton lost their bid to dismiss a class-action suit brought against them by investors of now-bankrupt Italian dairy conglomerate Parmalat.A federal judge in New York recently ruled that the accounting umbrella organizations couldn't insulate themselves from the actions of local affiliates in Italy that audited the company before its collapse from financial mismanagement and fraud in 2003.

Internal auditors have always had a problem expressing an opinion - or rather, expressing an opinion that others take the right way, with a proper understanding of its scope and type and the criteria used to produce it.The issue has come to the forefront recently as more corporate officers and audit committees respond to the demands of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, especially Section 404, which requires officers to certify that their internal controls are sound and effective.

Barely a week after a federal jury found HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy not guilty of participating in a massive accounting fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission was preparing civil charges against the former chief executive.

In a divisive 3-2 vote, the Securities and Exchange Commission amended and re-approved a proposed rule requiring the directors of mutual funds to be independent that had been ruled against by a federal court in a lawsuit a little more than a week before.