Under the looming threat of lawsuits from investors, regulators, and employees, directors at public companies are focusing on ways to mitigate their personal risk—and they would be wise to do so, according to a recent report. Among 39 board members surveyed by Thomson Financial, 15 indicated that they either have been sued or been put […]
Melissa Klein Aguilar
Posted inTechnology
Case Study: How To Adopt XBRL Filings
When the executives at Old Mutual Capital, a mutual fund based in Denver, decided to test the interactive-data waters this year, they didn’t know what to expect. They did know the Securities and Exchange Commission had been pushing companies to start filing their periodic reports in XBRL, the eXtensible Business Reporting Language that supposedly will […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Disclosure Control Weaknesses Up
While compliance experts—and regulators—are often heard advising companies to disclose early and often, when it comes to their Section 302 quarterly reports, it appears that many companies have ignored that advice. However, a surge in the number of companies filing ineffective Section 302 reports may suggest that such disclosure is improving, according to at least […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Enforcement Merger; Options Reminder
T he NASD and NYSE Group have laid the groundwork to consolidate their regulatory operations into a single self-regulatory organization in a plan the two groups say is expected to reduce regulatory costs to the industry by millions per year. The consolidation ultimately would mean one set of rules for the roughly 5,100 securities brokers […]
Posted inInternal Controls
Paulson Committee Ideas Unveiled
With the clock ticking on regulatory efforts to improve implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404, a high-profile committee has offered its two cents on how to make compliance with SOX 404 less burdensome. The recommendations come from a group of leaders in the investor, business, finance, law, accounting, and academic communities that is formally known as […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Compensation Committees In Line Of Fire
Make room, audit committee members; you’re about to get some company on the corporate-governance firing line. Thanks to recent litigation, a spate of stock option backdating scandals, and revised disclosure rules that will provide new details on what Corporate America pays its top executives, the spotlight is shining brighter than ever on executive pay. That […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Paulson On SOX; ISS Releases 2007 Policies
T reasury Secretary Henry Paulson says regulators should find a better way to implement the Sarbanes-Oxley Act rather than make wholesale changes to it, even as a high-powered committee of business executives acting with his blessing put the final touches on a report that may well call for those major revisions. Paulson “At this time, […]
Posted inFrom the Archive
Under Fire, Golden Parachutes May Get Cut
Already facing pressure from investors to shrink the hefty payouts executives often collect when their companies are sold, Corporate America may reconsider some aspects of the golden parachute now that businesses must disclose more details about them. Historically, companies have had to disclose the existence of change-in-control and termination arrangements with their executives, but they […]
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
Campos On Control Tests; EDGAR Update
As companies await the next moves by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board on amending Section 404 compliance obligations, Commissioner Roel Campos—generally a proponent of keeping tighter Sarbanes-Oxley restrictions to help protect investors—weighed in on the debate on reducing the cost of compliance. The importance of testing small companies’ […]
Posted inInternal Controls
Rumors Fly On SOX, AS2 Changes
Speculation on how regulators may amend compliance rules for Sarbanes-Oxley has reached a fever pitch recently, as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board prepare to release critical guidance for 2007 within weeks. The new rules should focus on two distinct but related issues: guidance to help corporate executives understand […]
