Tammy Whitehouse

Audit regulators plan to propose new standards in 2008 for how auditors should assess risk, including risk of fraud, as well as how to assess the work of specialists, including those helping with fair-value measurements. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board published an updated five-year strategic plan last week that says the board expects to […]

While nerves over market turmoil involving complicated financial instruments are still raw, the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board are floating some preliminary ideas for how to strip complexity out of the reporting of such instruments. IASB published a discussion paper titled “Reducing Complexity in Reporting Financial Instruments” as part of […]

Companies must start preparing new disclosures on how they use derivatives and hedging activities to manage risk. The Financial Accounting Standards Board completed another new accounting standard last week: Financial Accounting Standard No. 161, Disclosures about Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities. Its purpose is to increase disclosure about an entity’s financial position, financial performance, and […]

Proponents of fair-value accounting rushed to defend new fair-value accounting rules last week as corporations blamed the rules at least in part for earnings tailspins. Georgene Palacky, a director at the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, says fair value is being used as a scapegoat for companies when problems are more likely tied to market conditions […]

The U.S. Treasury Department’s advisory committee on how to prop up the audit profession recently gave a sneak peak at the recommendations it’s preparing, and notable was one thing not included in the package: liability protection. The Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession is crafting a number of suggestions for how to make the auditing […]

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has reluctantly agreed to give final guidance on how to calculate earnings per share when employees are holding shares for which they may receive dividends. The Board voted to finish a staff position that says unvested stock awards that carry the right to a dividend should be considered “participating securities” […]

Auditors will be under close watch by their regulator this year to determine how they have assessed risk around fair-value accounting. Mark Olson, Chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board told a conference of international bankers last week that auditors face three key challenges as companies make the transition to new rules involving the […]

Investor advocates are skeptical about suggestions to establish frameworks around accounting and auditing judgments, worried that it is a veiled movement toward liability protections for auditors and preparers of financial statements. The topic flared up at a Feb. 27 meeting of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Standing Advisory Group. The body met to review […]