Much of the attention paid to FAS 123R, the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s hotly debated stock option expensing rule, has focused on the regulation’s impact on employee stock option plans. Less noticed has been 123R’s impact on employee stock purchase plans. In fact, the rule—officially called “Share-Based Payment”—significantly alters the accounting of ESPPs by determining […]
Kroll Karen M.
Posted inFrom the Archive
A Guide To Governance Ratings Services
GOVERNANCE RATERS Audit Integrity The Corporate Library Governance Metrics International Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) Investor Responsibility Research Center Over the past year, Compliance Week has published numerous stories about governance ratings firms, including one a few weeks ago in which we questioned those firms’ ability to predict problems at Marsh & McLennan and other insurance […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
New Regulations, Standards Influencing Environmental Disclosures
Several events occurring over the past year may signal a sea change in the way that corporate executives report environmental liabilities in their SEC filings. Among the most significant were the SEC’s new interpretation of “triggering events” that require an 8-K filing, and the FASB’s issuance of guidance concerning FAS 143. At the same time, […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
SWAT Teams Assisting Companies In Electronic Discovery
In the Security and Exchange Commission’s now-famous “Statement on the Relationship of Cooperation to Agency Enforcement Decisions,” the Commission outlined criteria it would consider when determining how much to credit firms for “self-policing, self-reporting, remediation and cooperation.” According to the statement, cooperative behavior actions by companies could result in reduced charges, lighter sanctions, mitigating language […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Tagged Data May Help SEC, But Will It Help You?
An SEC announcement in late July, innocuously titled “SEC Announces Initiative to Assess Benefits of Tagged Data in Commission Filings,” eventually could impact financial and legal executives of publicly held companies more than many realize. The term “tagged data” refers to a financial reporting methodology in which individual figures are marked with standard accounting-industry identifiers. […]