The last of the five new members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board was sworn in earlier this month. The reconstituted Board’s first major public initiative is to seek input into its strategic planning process...more
Always a fertile source of guidance, this year’s American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments, held on December 4-6, was no exception. Discussions during this year’s...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission on December 12 announced the appointment of five new members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The new chairman of the Board will be William D. Duhnke III, currently the...more
In a November 14 speech at the Financial Executives International 36th Annual Current Financial Reporting Issues Conference, SEC Chief Accountant Wesley Bricker commented on a range of topics, including effective financial...more
The Center for Audit Quality and Audit Analytics recently released their 2017 Audit Committee Transparency Barometer. As in past years, the 2017 report “illustrates the continuing positive trend of audit committees...more
On October 23, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s revised auditing standard, AS 3101, governing the contents and form of the audit report. As noted by SEC...more
The staff of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board recently published a Staff Inspection Brief regarding its 2017 inspections of registered audit firms. As described in the corresponding news release, the goal of the...more
SEC Chief Accountant Wesley Bricker recently delivered another speech in which he discussed current issues in financial reporting and highlighted the critical roles that auditors, audit committees and audit regulation play in...more
Lewis Ferguson, a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, recently provided guidance to audit committees on how committees might use new, publicly available information regarding other accounting firm(s) that...more
In December 2015, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) adopted a rule requiring audit firms to file information on Form AP for each public company audit report. The disclosures include the name of the...more
On June 1, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board unanimously adopted a revised auditing standard governing the contents and form of the audit report delivered by registered public accounting firms as part of their...more
In a pair of recent speeches, SEC Chief Accountant Wesley Bricker discussed the critical role audit committees play in the financial reporting process, explored current challenges confronting audit committees, and offered...more
The Center for Audit Quality has issued an updated version of its "External Auditor Assessment Tool." First issued in 2012, this publication has provided a framework for audit committees to assess their companies' external...more
The ethical principles that govern the conduct of federal officials have received more media attention over the past several months than at any time in recent memory. This article addresses the most pertinent rules that...more
Many law firms now have a designated general counsel, or a group of counsel, tasked with managing myriad legal matters for the firm. What are some top-of-mind priorities for these GCs today as they strive to keep their firms...more
Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) have re-introduced their proposal to open to the public disciplinary proceedings by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board against accountants. Under...more
Each year, the vast majority of larger public companies voluntarily ask shareholders to ratify the audit committee’s selection of the company’s auditor, and such proposals routinely pass with high rates of shareholder...more
Recently, KPMG released its 2017 Global Audit Committee Pulse Survey, which reports on audit committee activities based on survey responses from 800 audit committee members across 42 countries. Asking, "Is Everything Under...more
Outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Mary Jo White has urged her successor and the SEC to continue to pursue high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards “as one of its highest priorities.” In a...more
Continuing its efforts to bring enforcement actions for violations of whistleblower protections, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently settled two more cases. Both cases involved severance agreements that contained...more
The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s comprehensive new revenue recognition standard (ASC 606) will become effective for calendar-year reporting companies on January 1, 2018, a little over a year from now. As previously...more
This year’s American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Conference on SEC and PCAOB Developments, held on December 5-7, echoed several themes from prior AICPA conferences regarding regulatory priorities of interest to...more
The election of Donald Trump as the next President and the continued Republican control of Congress raise questions as to what changes may be expected at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) and what may...more
With the 114th Congress drawing to a close, a number of officials will leave the legislative branch for new opportunities. This transition allows the private and nonprofit sectors to recruit seasoned professionals with recent...more
At a conference last week, the Chief Accountant of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance emphasized that the SEC staff will scrutinize companies’ financial reports in their upcoming reports on Form 10-K to see if they...more