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Accounting News Roundup: Audit Firms Q1 Client Gains and Losses; The Beginning of ‘Too Few to Fail’; James Franco Sues Accounting Firm | 04.21.14

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

BDO Leads Q1 in New SEC Clients [AT]
KPMG and Marcum also did okay for themselves, netting +8 and +5 while PwC and EY were big losers, netting -10 and -19 audit clients respectively. 

US Department of Justice v KPMG: Document Shows “Too Few To Fail” Was Opening Premise [Re:The Auditors]
Francine McKenna has dug up some correspondence that hasn't been highlighted previously between KPMG and the DOJ during the negotiations of the firm's settlement for tax evasion in 2005.

The Tax Court Didn't Repeal Attorney-Client Privilege [Forbes]
How about some legal interpretations for your Monday morning? 

FASB, IASB to Hold More Lease Accounting Talks [GlobeSt]
Mark your calendars for this Wednesday.

Suit says SamTrans retaliated against ex-employee for questioning accounting practices [SJMN]
It all started with a request for freight invoices and then it gets ugly from there.

James Franco’s Ex-Manager, Accounting Firm Sued for Diverting Actor’s Commissions [Variety]
No celebrity is safe!

16-Year-Old Survives in Wheel Well of Maui Flight [AP]
5 1/2 hours from San Jose to Maui: "Simon said security footage from the San Jose airport verified that the boy from Santa Clara, Calif., hopped a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 on Sunday morning. The child had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said. Simon said when the flight landed in Maui, the boy hopped down from the wheel well and started wandering around the airport grounds. 'He was unconscious for the lion's share of the flight,' Simon said. The flight lasted about 5½ hours."

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Accounting Professors Aren’t Waiting for Bureaucrats to Get Their Act Together

graduation.jpgEven though the convergence of IFRS and U.S. GAAP seems like a DeLorean ride away accounting professors polled believe that it should be included in the curriculum, according to Web CPA:
More, after the jump

The survey, by KPMG and the American Accounting Association, found that half of the professors who responded to the survey said they thought a low sense of urgency exists among U.S. regulators to adopt IFRS by a “date certain,” while only 16 percent believe regulators have a high sense of urgency.

Regardless of academics’ pessimism about the SEC getting their shit together and making this marriage of accounting rules happen, the slow integration into the American curriculum is still occurring:

Despite this challenge, 70 percent said they have taken significant steps to incorporate IFRS into the curriculum. In addition, 83 percent believe IFRS needs to be incorporated into their curricula by 2011…Given the dynamics of the current regulatory environment, 79 percent of faculty believe that U.S. GAAP should continue to be taught over the next three to five years, while progressively incorporating more IFRS concepts via a compare-and-contrast approach as the conversion date approaches.

A majority of the respondents to the survey also expect IFRS to be included in the CPA Exam by 2012/2013 and in intermediate accounting textbooks by 2011/2012.
For those of you still cracking the books, discuss if your profs have brought this up and what kind of priority they’re putting on IFRS. We’re not holding our breath for anything meaningful from TPTB.
Accounting Professors Urge IFRS Education [Web CPA]

Accounting News Roundup: JOBS Act Provision Going Into Effect; Aging Directors; Sleep Deprivation Is Hurting Your Career; | 06.18.15

Small Firms Aim to Raise Capital More Easily Under New Rules [WSJ]The new JOBS Act […]

Depantsing Day for the SEC

cox.jpgIn the biggest shocker of the day, the inspector general of the SEC reports that the Commission never undertook a ‘thorough and competent’ investigation into Bernie Madoff’s operations.
This seems to be the official “our bad” statement by the SEC, although Chris Cox didn’t waste any time throwing worker bees under the bus, “Days after the conman’s arrest, the SEC’s then-chairman, Christopher Cox, faulted the agency’s staff for failing to act on ‘credible and specific allegations’ about the operation for at least a decade.”
More, after the jump


Harry Markopolos was soiling himself the whole time and no one bothered to listen probably because you called country club rules when you took the big chair, C-squared. Call us Monday morning QB but if some guy called us up with dirty undies screaming about the biggest fraud in history, we’re pretty sure we’d take him seriously.
Anyhoo, it’s all water near a bridge now. Schape and Co. are kicking ass and taking their sweet time naming key positions, so we’re sure that everything will be hunky-dory from here on out.
SEC Never Took ‘Competent’ Look at Madoff’s Firm, Report Finds [Bloomberg]
UPDATE: Check out more of the SEC sucking over at our sister site, Dealbreaker.