Regulatory actions and programs

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Trinity National Corp. and wholly owned subsidiary Los Alamos Bank, have agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges of accounting fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it has approved the renewal of its Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies.

The International Accounting Standards Board proposed temporary measures to address worries over conflicts between a standard that has been issued, and another that isn’t due for a year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the Jacksonville, Fla.-based retail chain Stein Mart Inc. with materially misstating its pre-tax income due to improper valuation of inventory subject to price discounts and for having inadequate internal accounting controls.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White is facing pressure to recuse herself from picking the next head of the regulator that polices accountants because of a potential conflict with her husband’s legal work.

The Securities and Exchange Commission imposed sanctions Thursday against a Florida-based CPA for performing deficient and fraudulent audits and quarterly reviews for eight publicly traded companies, and issuing false and misleading audit opinions on the companies’ annual financial statements.

Between legislative changes and proposed rules and guidance issued by government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, business owners have a lot of red tape to navigate and understand.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission calling on the SEC to require internal audit functions for all publicly traded companies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will be poring over the comments it received on its recent proposal to toughen audit committee disclosures after the comment deadline expired Tuesday.

BDO USA has agreed to pay $2.1 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that the firm dismissed a number of red flags and issued false and misleading unqualified audit opinions about the financial statements of a staffing services company, General Employment Enterprises.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has published a staff inspection brief detailing the objectives, focus, and scope of its ongoing inspections in 2015 of auditors of brokers and dealers.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board announced that the next meeting of its Investor Advisory Group.

The American Institute of CPAs' Auditing Standards Board has issued a new exposure draft proposing amendments to the auditing standard on auditor’s reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued an interpretive rule clarifying that whistleblowers are protected by retaliation by employers even if they have not reported their concerns to the SEC first.

In an age of stepped-up regulation and enforcement, accountants and their clients need to know how to cope with a variety of different agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Profs. Miller & Bahnson dive deep into the standard-setter in an all-new edition of a classic text

The Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General issued a report criticizing PricewaterhouseCoopers’ audit of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and has referred to the matter to the American Institute of CPAs’ Professional Ethics Division.

One of the more intriguing questions stemming from the Toshiba Corp. accounting scandal is this: Where was the whistleblower?

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced a settlement Monday with a Brooklyn man who entered into a cooperation agreement to help the agency mount evidence in an insider trading scheme in which illegal tips were passed via napkins or Post-It notes at Grand Central Terminal that the tipster would then consume to destroy the evidence.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has sanctioned seven audit firms for violating independence requirements in connection with audits of brokers and dealers, and sanctioned engagement partners at two of the firms for causing the violations.