Thursday, May 29th, 2008
Sarbanes-Oxley gives shareholders powerful tools to fight investment fraud, said a group of investment advisers attending a recent corporate governance conference in Paris. In that sense, the highly controversial corporate reform law does exactly as Congress intended it, whether or not it makes the United States less competitive from an economic standpoint. One caveat, according to nternational Herald Tribune commentator and former Arthur Andersen auditor Jim Peterson: The already shaky audit industry — built only on four major players — may not be able to survive another failure, especially in light of the current economic downturn. READ MORE
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Friday, May 23rd, 2008
Two lawsuits filed by former employees against Fidelity Investments may resolve a simmering dispute in the securities industry: Whether mutual fund employees are protected by a whistle-blower law adopted in the wake of corporate accounting scandals. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act does not specifically apply to the Fidelity Investments chairman’s firm and other privately held companies.
Congress gave whistle-blowers at public companies strong protections against retaliations when it passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 after the collapse of Enron Corp. and WorldCom. But the law does not specifically extend to privately held firms such as Fidelity that invest in public companies.
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Monday, May 12th, 2008
We peruse the Internet headlines so you don’t have to. Here are the recent SOX and GRC headlines (and links) we felt are newsworthy:
PCAOB Reports on Ernst & Young Audit Problems - The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found problems with four audits conducted by Ernst & Young in its latest inspection report.
Audit Board Finds Fault with BDO Seidman - The accounting firm should have done more work to support its audit opinions for five of its clients, according to the PCAOB.
Stryker Corp raises spending in quality, compliance - It plans to spend $50 million in 2008 to improve its quality and compliance as it works to resolve issues with federal health regulators.
IRS E-Crimes Program Needs Better Controls - E-Crimes has not established some common and necessary internal controls over digital evidence seized during investigations.
FEI Survey: Average 2007 SOX Compliance Cost $1.7 Million - Financial Executives International (FEI) announced today the results of its seventh Sarbanes-Oxley compliance survey, which found that Section 404 compliance cost Corporate America less in year four of adoption than in each of the first three years.
Risk climbs to top of corporate to-do list - Subprime losses spawn board-level risk committees. Sign of the times: Hot job title is Chief Risk Officer.
Accounting Degrees Reach 36-Year High - Hiring by firms in 2006-2007 shot up 83 percent over the previous three years, according to the report. Sixty-seven percent of the firms that responded to the AICPA survey anticipate they will continue to increase their hiring.
US audit watchdog eyeing hard-to-value securities - U.S. banks and other companies have struggled with valuing securities linked to the subprime mortgage crisis and Wall Street has been forced to write down billions of dollars in related losses in recent months.
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