Corporate & Securities Law

Syms and the Future of Sarbanes-Oxley

Posted on March 12, 2008
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has many detractors. They claim that the Act is an over-burdensome piece of regulation, one that has imposed costly and unneeded obligations on issuers. It has driven U.S. companies to exit the public markets and ?go private,? and it has deterred non-U...

Good governance pays 18pc more

Posted on March 05, 2008
UK companies with exceptional corporate governance records generate returns 18 per cent higher than those with poor records, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI).The study analysed 654 UK FTSE All-Share companies over four years to 2007 using data from the ABI?s Institutional Voting and Information Service, which highlights breaches of good governance using a colour code system...

Acquisition is key to future growth

Posted on March 05, 2008
Financial solutions group Trintech has acquired Movaris, the risk and compliance solutions provider. The $5 million sale was due being finalised as Irish Computer went to press. Movaris is a pioneer in governance, risk and compliance processes. The California based firm has over 80 enterprise customers for its products, which streamline the process of turning aggregated financial and operational information into public financial statements...

The Current State Of Corporate Fraud Risk Management (FRM)

Posted on March 05, 2008
Now that the initial wave of Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance is becoming a distant memory and companies are well versed in the regulations, many would assume that organizations would be far along with implementing their comprehensive fraud risk management (FRM) strategies...

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A Word From Ron Paul

Posted on March 05, 2008
Trailwatch reached out to each of the remaining presidential campaigns and offered them an unedited forum in which they could address voters. As he was when we requested information for our Candidate Screener, Ron Paul was the first candidate to respond to our offer...

Ignore a Whistleblower ? at Your Peril

Posted on March 05, 2008
A financial scandal at biotech company Dyadic International offers a telling lesson about how whistleblower memos can come back to haunt the executives who ignore them.Dyadic's internal dirty laundry first came to light at the company last April, when then-CFO Wayne Moor went to the company's Asian subsidiary to pick up the pieces after the unexpected death of an executive...

Current Research Questions on Internal Control over Financial Reporting Under Sarbanes-Oxley

Posted on March 05, 2008
from KPMG's "Audit Committee Insights" for March 5, 2008, originally published in the February 2008 issue of The CPA Journal.The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002's requirements regarding internal control over financial reporting requirements for management and auditors have had a profound effect on both public companies and public accounting firms...

Sarbanes in Switzerland?

Posted on March 04, 2008
When it comes to administration, the Swiss are famous for their efficiency and attention to detail. It is somewhat surprising, then, that a number of changes to company audit law are only now coming into effect. Most notably, from January 1st 2008 auditors must verify internal control systems at the companies they audit...

Compliance Week Survey: Sarbanes-Oxley Improvements on the Decline

Posted on March 04, 2008
Exclusive new research from Compliance Week shows companies that made improvements to their internal control over financial reporting in the wake of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) are expecting fewer improvements over time. The results also suggest that Auditing Standard No...

Board Proposes New Auditing Standard: Engagement Quality Review

Posted on February 27, 2008
(follow on to yesterday's announcement - with link to the proposed standard pdf)The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board voted today to propose for public comment a new auditing standard on engagement quality review and a conforming amendment to the Board?s interim quality control requirements...

PCAOB - Board Proposes New Auditing Standard: Engagement Quality Review

Posted on February 26, 2008
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board voted today to propose for public comment a new auditing standard on engagement quality review and a conforming amendment to the Board?s interim quality control requirements. This proposed standard would supersede the Board?s interim quality control standard, SECPS Requirements of Membership § 1000...

Speech By SEC Commissioner Kathleen L. Casey: Corporate Governance Issues And Trends

Posted on February 25, 2008
Excerpt from comments on CompetitivenessIn the last year, three major studies have called into question U.S. competitiveness. Each concludes that America is losing ground to foreign markets. They suggest that these trends may be caused by foreign markets developing and evolving ? no more than a natural growth and maturation in markets abroad...

Scrap the monthly bored meeting

Posted on February 25, 2008
Corporate collapse is in the air once again; loss and recrimination stalks the business world as bankers switch from being money marketers to capital conservers.Just how much risk capital will be lost during this credit squeeze is unknowable, of course, but it?s unlikely that the squeeze on equity is over yet...

Hospital?s Accounting Is Under Fire by a Union

Posted on February 23, 2008
A union is trying to force nonprofit groups like hospitals to comply with standards of governing similar to those that federal law requires of private companies.In particular, the union, the 1.9-million-member Service Employees International, argues that a Boston hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, violated those standards by including its losses from bad debts in its tally of the charity care it provides...

Small companies also can benefit from Sarbanes-Oxley

Posted on February 23, 2008
If you listened carefully, you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from 5,000 smaller public companies when Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox proposed yet another extension to the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) deadline for an external audit of Internal Control over Financial Reporting (ICFR)...

Overseas whistleblowers protected by Sarbanes-Oxley?

Posted on February 19, 2008
Overseas employees of US-listed companies that uncover fraud that took place in the US can be protected under the US corporate governance legislation, according to a ruling made in New York.Judge Victor Marrero of the US District Court, found that Rosemary O?Mahoney, a Accenture employee based in Paris who claimed that the consultancy had carried out tax fraud, is entitled to protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act...

Whistle-blower site taken offline

Posted on February 19, 2008
Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed...

Corporate governance key to instituting stock market

Posted on February 10, 2008
Corporate governance is an essential condition to the establishment of a stock market, attracting major investment and developing national reserves which will lead to combating unemployment and reducing poverty, said Dr. Yahya al-Mutawakel, the Minister of Industry and Trade, during the launch of a corporate governance conference held last Wednesday...

Accountant shortage gets acute

Posted on February 08, 2008
Have a little pity on your company?s accounting department ? or at least their managers.A report released at the end of January confirmed that local companies are suffering the same shortage of accounting and finance professionals that national surveys have shown during the last several years...

Does Mass. Law Force Sarbox on Non-Profits?

Posted on February 08, 2008
A Massachusetts healthcare workers union is asking board members of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to apply Sarbanes-Oxley Act disclosure rules to the non-profit hospital's audits.The 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East sent letters to six of Beth Israel's 18 board members, who also serve as executives or sit on boards of public companies, citing state law as a precedent for the request...

SOX Life Blog: Risk-Based SOX Implementation - Deloitte Gets Succinct on Sarbox

Posted on February 06, 2008
For so many companies, internal discussions have largely gotten past SOX compliance to a point of business as usual.What I do appreciate however, is that good, clear guidance continues to be developed. For those many professionals that have moved onto new challenges, the issue now becomes one of implementing the familiar COSO framework in a new organization...

SEC Begins Small Business Costs and Benefits Study of Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404

Posted on February 05, 2008
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that its professional staff has commenced a cost-benefit study of an upcoming auditor attestation requirement for smaller companies under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.The study will collect and analyze extensive "real world" cost and benefit data from a broad array of companies currently complying with Section 404 under newly-issued guidance for companies and auditors...

Demand For Accountants On The Rise

Posted on February 05, 2008
Conventional wisdom said demand for accountants and auditors would have tapered off by now.Well, conventional wisdom was wrong.Staffing agencies such as Robert Half International, which specializes in pairing employers with accountants, say demand for talented, skilled professionals in the Tampa Bay area and around the country continues to rise, and salaries are growing...

Commentary: Postal Service readies for Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Posted on February 05, 2008
The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act includes a mandate that the U.S. Postal Service comply with Securities and Exchange Commission rules that implement the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) by fiscal 2010. The act requires corporations to report on the effectiveness of their internal controls, with the goal being to ensure the accuracy of financial reporting...

WorldCom Whistle-blower Cynthia Cooper

Posted on February 05, 2008
Think of her as the mother of 404.Not that that's a goal she ever imagined or one she has embraced. But the odyssey that began when Cynthia Cooper, the then?vice president of internal audit at WorldCom, decided to investigate anomalies in the company's accounting entries ended by inspiring critical ? and heavily criticized ? legislation: the U...

Accounting Firms Scramble To Find Experienced CPAs

Posted on January 24, 2008
Public-accounting firms are ramping up efforts to hire and retain senior-level talent as new auditing and accounting rules continue to fuel clients' need for their services. As demand grows, poaching among firms has intensified, and pay and perks are on the rise...

Citigroup Trial May Double Enron Creditors' Payout

Posted on January 24, 2008
Enron Corp. creditors could see their original payout more than quadruple to as much as $31 billion after a trial against Citigroup Inc.Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., the entity winding up the defunct energy trader's affairs, distributed $13.3 billion, or 36 cents on the dollar, since a bankruptcy plan was approved in 2004...

Board's Give Or Get More Expensive Now

Posted on January 22, 2008
More than half of nonprofits now require board members to make an annual contribution, with a major share of large ones setting a minimum of $5,000.That finding, in the new edition of National Board Governance Survey for Not-for-Profit Organizations conducted by the accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP, comes against a backdrop of more and more nonprofits reshaping board of directors practices and policies to fit the Sarbanes-Oxley Act...

?SEBI to deal with specific provisions on corporate governance for listed cos?

Posted on January 18, 2008
The new company law is likely to stipulate that specific provisions on corporate governance for listed companies, including the number of independent directors on the board, will be outlined by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.This would help curb the possible overlaps between SEBI and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), an official source said...

Corporate governance survey conducted (Pakistan)

Posted on January 18, 2008
International Finance Corporation (IFC), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), and Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance (PICG) have commissioned and edited a Survey of Corporate Governance Practices in Pakistan 2007.The survey was meant to assist private and public sector companies to close any gaps between their current practices and the requirements of Pakistan?s Code of Corporate Governance 2002, as well as the guidelines given by internationally recognized best practice...

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