Posts Tagged ‘SOX 404’
SEC Starts Regulatory Reform Push
The Securities and Exchange Commission began moving forward this week on its ambitions to craft a more business-friendly regulatory regime, starting with plans to exempt many more companies from compliance requirements and to cap potential rewards to whistleblowers. Most notable for ethics and compliance officers, the commissioners voted (along the predictable 3-2 partisan split, favoring…
Read MoreNew PCAOB Leadership Comes Aboard
The leadership transition at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has begun. Its new chairman and one new board member were sworn in yesterday, and one of the new chairman’s first acts was to name a new chief of staff. William Duhnke was sworn in as chairman, Kathleen Hamm as board member. Duhnke then named…
Read MoreTreasury Report Eyes SOX Compliance
The Trump Administration wants to exempt more companies from audits of internal control over financial reporting by raising the exemption threshold from $75 million to $250 million in market cap, and by doubling the time a newly public company is shielded from compliance obligations to 10 years. So says a Treasury Department report released Friday…
Read MoreSOX Compliance: Do Better Than a ‘C’ Grade
So there we all were on Monday, several hundred of us, warming up for Workiva’s 2017 Wdesk user conference by attending the SOX & Internal Controls Professionals Group Summit to talk all things internal control. On stage was Jeremy Sucharski, GRC, SOX, and internal audit partner at Armanino. He was sharing thoughts on good and bad…
Read MorePCAOB Lists Audit Inspection Priorities for 2017
SOX compliance officers, prepare to recalibrate your audit compass: the PCAOB has released its list of priorities for audit inspections this year. In a 19-page briefing document published yesterday, the PCAOB said its 2017 inspections are focusing on chronic trouble spots such as auditing accounting estimates and audits of internal control over financial reporting. They…
Read MorePCAOB Overhaul Looms
SOX compliance professionals, prepare yourselves: the SEC has announced plans for new leadership at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which could eventually bring significant changes in how audits and SOX compliance are managed. SEC chairman Jay Clayton put events into motion Friday afternoon, with a quiet announcement that current PCAOB chairman Jim Doty “has…
Read MoreThe Private Market Stresses Driving SOX Compliance Debate
If you want to understand the forces pushing to roll back compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act—and if you work in corporate compliance, you should—then spend time today reading a superb Wall Street Journal article about the conflicted state of investment in the private markets. We can’t ignore the uncertainty there, because it’s a big driver…
Read MoreFraming the Arguments Over SOX Compliance
Well, it’s started. Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission have begun plotting ways to roll back corporate compliance and governance practices. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a top priority. New SEC chairman Jay Clayton fired the starting gun on July 12, when he gave his first public address as chairman. He laid out eight concerns…
Read MoreSEC Chair Clayton Talks Compliance Costs
New SEC chairman Jay Clayton gave his first speech last week, to the Economic Club of New York—a wide-ranging address that touched on a litany of topics, from cybersecurity to enforcement to Clayton’s favorite subject, “capital formation,” which is code for relaxing rules for IPOs. We could spend days dissecting all 3,865 words of his…
Read MoreTale of Sound & Fury: The 404(b) Debate
We’re going to argue a lot in coming months about whether to exempt many more companies from compliance with Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Personally, I’m torn between those people who believe 404(b) compliance is crucial to good governance; and those who say expanding the exemption will allow more companies to go public. I…
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