The Wall St. Journal reports that a judge has tossed a case brought by freaky-ass, longlife milk company Parmalat against Grant Thornton and Bank of America.
Parmalat filed for bankruptcy back when everyone thought invading Iraq was a good idea so this thing has been dragging.
This is another major lawsuit that G to the T has managed to avoid, along with the dismissal of the Refco suit last month.
GT seems to be quite the bullet dodger and can probably breathe easy. For now, anyway.
Judges Tosses Parmalat Lawsuits [WSJ]
Related Posts
Ken Lewis Should Have Been a CPA
We know public accounting is hard. The unpaid overtime (*cough* perhaps PwC can tell you about that *cough*), busy season, the misconception that all CPAs are number-crunching mathletes, and, of course, the inconvenience of having to answer everyone’s obscure tax questions. “Dude, I don’t even WORK in tax, I’m an auditor.” “Yeah but I just have this quick question about a deduction…”
As bad as the CPAs may have it, they’ve got it easy compared to this guy. Poor Ken Lewis. Someone invite him to waste a few years in public accounting please, he’s getting pounded from every angle over here, poor bastard.
Let’s check the timeline – please compare to your busy season and see who has it worse if you’re still regretting your decision.
More on KL’s banner year, after the jump
Ken Lewis’ year started sucking in January after the Merrill bonus scandal erupted. This got NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on his back, eventually leading to the Fedgate scandal in which Lewis claimed Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson “threatened” the Bank of America CEO or kept him on a short TARP leash or some such “OMG did he really just say that?” revelation. He’d already come off a pretty rough year previous but you already know that story.
Bernanke and Paulson didn’t take getting fronted off too kindly (we can only assume) and Lewis hasn’t really gotten a break since. The guy couldn’t even sell his Porsche without feeling the heat. Now a judge is blocking the $33 million settlement he’d love to make with the SEC and some Citigroup reject is being groomed as his replacement. Burn. Oh, and then there are the JP Morgan analysts saying Bank of America will service the loans that TBW cannot since, well, it was raided by Federal agents and barred from making loans by the FHA.
So how bad do you really have it? We told you it could be worse. Next time you’re out there ticking and tying wondering how in the hell you’re going to spend the rest of your life that way, just think about Bank of America and remember you could be Ken Lewis right about now.
What we’d really like to know is: will Lewis be able to limp along for the next 3 years and make it to retirement before totally flipping out?
Footnotes: Even Aliens Pay Taxes; Hazing Tim Ryan; Government Accounting is Broke(n) | 09.26.14
The Federal Reserve's Artful Compassion for Households in 'Sobering' Condition [HuffPo] Court Rules Alien Needs […]
IASB, FASB Are Really, Really Getting Serious About Convergence
Do you have doubts about the IASB and FASB’s commitment to accounting rule convergence? What? The name change idea didn’t convince you?
Well, David Tweedie and Bob Herz both addressed doubters attendees at a joint conference of the American Institute of CPAs and the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation in New York to let them know that they are redoubling and in some cases, retripling their efforts to get this done.
The boards intend to hold more joint face-to-face meetings, in some cases by video conference, in order to make faster progress.
“We’re going to work on these issues together every month,” said Tweedie. “That’s why we think we’ll make our June 2011 target date.”
Monthly meetings. Some will be face-to-face. When they can’t do that, there will be video conferencing. Is there any doubt how serious they are taking this? This should be a piece of cake now. Oh sure, maybe they’re going to agree to disagree on the fair value thing but who said that’s important?
Wait a minute. Sir David Tweedie’s confidence seems shaky:
The approach may or may not work, and Tweedie acknowledged that some of the standards may take several years to be finalized. In many cases, they will be moving targets. But the goal of achieving a June 2011 convergence of the two sets of standards still seems doable, he insisted, and it would be a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
Good lord. Which is it people? Let’s just agree that accounting standards will be kinda-sorta converged by June 2011 and the rest of them will be converged “at a date yet to be determined”. We understand that the pressure is tough. No need to commit to anything.
IASB and FASB to Meet Monthly on Standards Overhaul [Web CPA]
Accounting Standard-Setters Will Get Much Chummier [Web CPA Debits & Credits]
Earlier: IASB: You Want a New Fair Value Rule? You Got It. Just Don’t Ask Us About Convergence