Regulatory actions and programs

Barney Frank once urged Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Bob Herz not to let the FASB become the “Slows-B” when it came to revamping accounting standards in the midst of the financial crisis, and Herz certainly isn’t being slow when it comes to his just-announced retirement.

Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Robert Herz plans to retire after more than eight years of leading the board, which will now increase in size to seven members.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking the public for feedback on its plans for incorporating International Financial Reporting Standards into the financial reporting system for U.S. issuers.

Freed from the threat of the Supreme Court putting it out of business, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has decided to start flexing its muscles.

Audit firms that engage in shady accounting practices or financial fraud face a growing risk of being turned in – by their own staff accountants and by the internal auditors of their public company clients.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board plans to impose more sanctions on accounting firms and managers that don’t adequately supervise their staff.

The acting chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Daniel L. Goelzer, plans to ask Congress to consider a change to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to allow the PCAOB’s disciplinary hearings of accountants and accounting firms, along with the related proceedings, to be made public.

Regulatory risk ranks as the top threat to business performance, according to a new report by Ernst & Young.

House Democrats blasted Republicans for blocking a bill with tax breaks for small businesses and the removal of a controversial 1099 information reporting requirement after the bill failed to garner the two-thirds margin needed for passage.

Senate Republicans united in blocking a vote on legislation to provide tax breaks to small businesses along with a $30 billion lending fund.

The International Accounting Standards Board has published a proposed set of changes to insurance contract accounting in an effort to impose a single standard upon all insurers in all jurisdictions that would apply to all types of insurance contracts on a consistent basis.

SEC settlements with top companies over financial misstatements have declined since 2007, and nearly three quarters of SEC settlements with companies over misstatements are for no money, according to a group of economic consultants.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has unveiled some new changes to the Small Business Jobs Act, in an effort to win more support for the bill.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has released a new set of standards aimed at improving the transparency of financial reporting by companies that hold financing receivables, which include loans, lease receivables, and other long-term receivables.

Thirty-seven percent of U.S. chief financial officers and senior controllers believe that a balance sheet should display both the fair value (exit value) and amortized cost of assets, according to a new survey by Grant Thornton.

Managers of the nation's largest stock funds have called on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to open a direct line of communication between independent auditors and corporate shareholders.

Recently, we came across this observation by H.L. Mencken, a noted cynic from the 1920s: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong."

One set of accounting standards for the whole world. This is a great idea!

The Financial Accounting Foundation has appointed Mark Schroeder, a recently retired senior partner at Deloitte & Touche, to a new position as post-implementation review leader of accounting standards.

Bank of America has fessed up to having shifted billions of dollars in debt off its balance sheet at opportune times in its fiscal calendar over the past three years, showing that the kinds of repurchase transactions that helped sink Lehman Brothers were not altogether uncommon.