Section 72001 of the FAST Act and the SEC’s interim final rule.
In a December 2015 LawFlash, we addressed several provisions of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (“FAST Act”) that relate to the federal...more
On May 17, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued new and revised Compliance & Disclosure Interpretations (CDIs) on the use of non-GAAP financial measures. These CDIs will likely affect many non-GAAP financial...more
On May 11, 2016, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued a reproposal of its auditor reporting standard. This action follows more than five years of active PCAOB consideration of whether the auditor’s...more
The SEC recently announced settled administrative proceedings against Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation (MHR), the former chief financial officer and chief accounting officer of MHR, the engagement partner on MHR’s external...more
Companies’ management should consider whether to add a materiality carve-out to the related party representations now being included in management representation letters as a result of the PCAOB’s Auditing Standard No. 18 (AS...more
OVERVIEW -
On July 1, 2015, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a concept release relating to its audit committee reporting requirements. This release references two Public Company Accounting Oversight...more
8/4/2015
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Emerging Growth Companies ,
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Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Shareholders
On April 1, the FASB decided to defer the effective date of the new revenue recognition standard to interim periods of public entities within their annual reporting periods that begin after December 15, 2017. Early adoption...more
4/2/2015
The FASB’s Accounting Standards Update No. 2015-02, Consolidation (Topic 810): Amendments to the Consolidation Analysis, issued in February,
- reduces the number of applicable consolidation models from four to two: the...more
4/2/2015
In January, the FASB adopted a final Accounting Standards Update that eliminates the requirement that preparers report events that meet the criteria for extraordinary classification separately in an income statement, net of...more
On December 8 and 9, staff members of the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant, including the SEC chief accountant in his first published speech since he arrived at the SEC, discussed various accounting and financial...more
On November 18, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance and the Office of the Chief Accountant (the Staff) rescinded Topic 5.J. of the Staff Accounting Bulletin Series. Topic 5.J. required an SEC registrant that became...more
In response to the SEC’s request for input on how to improve the effectiveness of public company disclosure, the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Business Law Section’s Federal Regulation of Securities and Law and...more
The PCAOB’s Chief Auditor issued a new standard-setting agenda on September 30 (the Updated Agenda), which notes the following future requests for comments, but no substantive adoptions, between October 2014 and March 2015....more
The PCAOB recently issued Staff Audit Practice Alert No. 12, which outlines significant audit deficiencies relating to revenue that PCAOB inspections have identified. ...more
The SEC has adopted credit rating agency rules for Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs), which include requirements relating to NRSROs’ internal controls. The Dodd-Frank Act requires NRSROs to...more
A new FASB standard should diminish the current diversity in disclosures regarding substantial doubt about an entity’s ability to continue as a going concern, which has been caused, in part, by the absence of any GAAP in this...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California recently granted a motion to dismiss a derivative action in which the plaintiff alleged that the directors of VeriFone Systems, Inc. breached fiduciary duties...more
In United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 880 Pension Fund v. Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the complaint on a motion for summary...more
A recent SEC-settled administrative action is another reminder of the SEC’s focus on internal control over financial reporting (ICFR). Although prior SEC ICFR charges have been accompanied with allegations of false financial...more
Recent restatement studies released by the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) and Audit Analytics show that an increasing percentage of restatements are filed by companies that do not disclose that prior financial statements are...more
Panelists at the PCAOB’s June 25 Standing Advisory Group Meeting discussed cybersecurity and the potential implications for financial reporting and auditing. Some of the highlights from the panel include the following...more
The FASB has a number of projects on its agenda that are intended to enhance the usefulness of financial statements for investors and to simplify the statements’ preparation. Among the projects are the following...more
The Office of the Chief Auditor of the PCAOB issued an updated standard-setting agenda, providing the expected timing and key milestones for various PCAOB rulemaking projects. Some of the highlights from the agenda, which was...more
In a recent speech at the Stanford Directors’ College, SEC Chair Mary Jo White discussed several “things that directors should know about the SEC.” Her speech focused on directors as gatekeepers, self-reporting of wrongdoing,...more
In a recent meeting, a representative of the SEC accounting staff noted that the SEC staff is focusing on how companies with operations in Venezuela are affected by the various foreign currency exchange mechanisms in...more