SEC, FASB, PCAOB Address Accountants

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox provided the SEC Keynote address (via videotape) on December 5, 2005, the first day of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA's) annual National Conference on Current SEC and PCAOB Developments. Others keynote speakers were SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, PCAOB Board member Charles Niemeier, and FASB Chairman Robert Herz. .

Listed below are links to speeches given at the conference which have been posted to the regulators' websites. The list will be updated as additional speeches are made available. Also listed below are links to other recent press releases and speeches by the SEC and PCAOB on current topics relating to financial reporting.

SEC Keynote
SEC Chairman Christopher Cox (Complexity, Competition among audit firms, XBRL) (summary here)

SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins (Enforcement actions should occur when there are violations of formal rules, not informal staff guidance; judgment should be allowed; overly prescriptive standards are not good - AS2 may have been overly prescriptive; SEC oversight of PCAOB)

FASB Keynote
FASB Chairman Bob Herz (Complexity) (summary here)

PCAOB Keynote
PCAOB Board member Charles Niemeier (Reiterated theme of all parties working together to reduce complexity; Accounting profession needs to be self-motivated and proactive in approaching financial reporting to break continued cycle of repeated problems….There is a solution to virtually every problem; sometimes the solution requires unconventional thinking or considering something that was previously believed too difficult or too insignificant.

Other SEC Speakers
Division of Corporation Finance Chief Accountant, Carol Stacey (Comments focused on "how the complexity of our current system impacts full, fair and accurate disclosure".) (summary here)

Office of the Chief Accountant
Acting Chief Accountant, Scott Taub (Complexity, Fair Value, XBRL, Use of Judgment) (summary here)
Deputy Chief Accountant, Julie Erhardt (International focus)
Associate Chief Accountant, Ed Bailey (Auditor Independence focus)

Mark Northan, OCA (Hedge Accounting, FIN 46R)
Alison Spivey, OCA (FAS 123R) (See also Shan Benedict's remarks on FAS 123R linked below)
Pamela Schlosser, OCA ("Breakage" in vendor agreements; Bus Comb issues including customer related intangible assets and new basis of accounting)
Brian Roberson, OCA (Materiality - guidance is forthcoming - some suggestions on what companies should do now to prepare for that; Bus Comb - EITF Issues 04-1, "Accounting for Preexisting Relationships between the Parties to a Business Combination")
Brian Croteau, OCA (SEC interaction with, and oversight of, PCAOB)
Jennifer Burns, OCA (Section 404, small business (including recent COSO Exposure Draft))
Shan Benedict, OCA (FAS 123R) (see also Alison Spivey's remarks on FAS123R linked above)

Updated Dec.7, 2005 by Edith Orenstein (eorenstein@fei.org), Director, Technical Policy Analysis, Financial Executives International (FEI). This summary does not represent FEI opinion, unless specifically noted above.

	More Summaries From
Deloitte Dec. 13 Deloitte Dec. 23