¶ … Law Is Likely to Affect All of the Following: Audit Committees of Public Company Boards of Directors
According to Sections 201 and 204 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), auditors must report "all critical accounting policies and practices" and the members of an audit committee cannot offer "non-audit services for public company audit clients" (PowerPoint, slide 6). According to SOX Section 303 and 404, company officers are prohibited from influencing auditors and "the auditor shall attest to, and report on, the assessment of internal control made by the management of the public company" (PowerPoint, slide 6).
A study of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sanctions against auditors before and after the implementation of SOX up to 2010 found that common reasons for auditor failure to detect fraud include "failure to exercise due professional care;" "insufficient levels of professional skepticism;" "inadequate identification and assessment of risks;" and "failure to respond to identified risks with appropriate audit responses to gather sufficient competent audit evidence" (Beasley, Carcello & Neal 2007). Clearly, SOX did not prevent such failures from occurring after it was passed in 2002 although ensuring a separation between auditors and other firm activities by prohibiting non-audit services should at least theoretically increase the motivation for auditors to be objective and identify risks. The demand that the auditor sign off on assessments of identified control and be held responsible for failures should at least theoretically...
Accounting fraud is defined as the "intentional misstatement of financial reports, in violation of generally accepted accounting principles, with the objective of making certain people act in detriment to their best interests" (Wuerges & Borba, 2010). The GAAP are the principles by which financial accounting statements are produced, and for a public company these need to be followed, so deviating from GAAP will constitute a violation. Where it becomes a
Countrywide Accounting Fraud In the year 1969, David Loeb moved to NY from Virginia to begin a home loan and advance organization named as "United Mortgage Servicing." He was joined by his trusted aide Angelo Mozilo. Both shared common dreams of big money and making their presence felt across the nation. The sole owner of the firm, David Loeb had to, under pressure of work, circumstances and colleagues part with half
This process has been ongoing since then. One of the major differences between the two standards is going to be that whereas GAAP emphasizes rules, the IFRS is a principle-based approach. Implementing a principles-based approach has significant implications for American tax practice. Many of the specific differences between the two systems will have a direct impact on tax practice. In IFRS, LIFO is prohibited and inventory write-downs may be reversed
Accounting and Audit Enforcement 1. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act applies to publicly-traded companies. Thus, it does not apply to non-profit entities. Nor does it apply to for-profit entities that are not publicly-traded. This is because SOX was passed specifically to address instances of accounting fraud in publicly traded companies that were undermining consumer trust in the capital markets (101.com, 2018). A publicly traded companies has a variety of different obligations under SOX
Business Finance "The Commission" refers to the Securities Exchange Commission, which is the primary governing body for financial markets. "The Board" is the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board. The SEC oversees the Board. The SEC therefore approves the rules that the Board writes and implements, the SEC appoints the people who run the PCAOB and the PCAOB is accountable to the SEC. The PCAOB is a board, of people, appointed by the SEC. The
Loyalty to the client was clearly placed above loyalty to the overall public good and the standards of the profession. "Enron paid Andersen $25 million for its audit…and $27 million for 'consulting' and other services" which meant that Anderson had a substantial financial stake in retaining Enron as a client (Kadlec 2002). The Enron case illustrates the difficulty of self-policing within the industry. Today, providing additional services besides the
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