Current financial reporting issues. (Conferences).As perhaps a sign of the times A Sign of the Times was a 1966 single by Petula Clark. Written by Tony Hatch, the uptempo pop number juxtaposed Clark's driving vocals with a powerful brass section. She introduced the tune on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 27, 1966. , 700 senior financial executives crammed the 21st annual Conference on Corporate Reporting Issues November 4-5 in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. -- breaking FEI FEI Fédération Équestre Internationale. attendee records. Katherine (Kate) Asbeck, chairman of the Committee on Corporate Reporting, opened the conference, saying, "I'm sure the record attendance is directly related to the record pace of change that we, as preparers of financial statements, are facing." She indicated that with Sarbanes-Oxley, the new public company advisory oversight board and a marked move toward international accounting standards, the preparers' world is quickly changing. The first day's keynote speaker, Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Board composed of independent members who create and interpret Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Robert Herz, discussed what the FASB FASB See: Financial Accounting Standards Board FASB See Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). is doing to fulfill its mission related to standard setting in this country. On the technical front, he said the FASB has "significantly modified our agenda and priorities in direct response to issues that have come to light in the recent financial reporting scandals including accounting for special-purpose entities (SPEs), guarantees, equity derivatives and obligations settleable in shares, energy trading contracts and the very broad area of revenue recognition." Also mentioned: fair value measurement, accounting for employee stock compensation, stock options and accounting for business combinations. The Day 2 keynote speaker, Cynthia Glassman Dr. Cynthia Aaron Glassman of Alexandria, Virginia is a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). She served as acting chair from July 1 2005 to August 3, 2005. She received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. , Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, hastily stepped in to replace the scheduled and then-still SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt (he resigned that evening). "FEI has been, and I am sure will continue to be, an important advocate for integrity in financial reporting, and a key partner with the SEC in our work on behalf of investors," said Glassman. She said that the spate of scandals involving corporate malfeasance The commission of an act that is unequivocally illegal or completely wrongful. Malfeasance is a comprehensive term used in both civil and Criminal Law to describe any act that is wrongful. and financial mismanagement Financial mismanagement is management that, deliberately or not, is handled in a way that can be characterised as "wrong, bad, careless, inefficient or incompetent" and that will reflect negatively upon the financial standing of a business or individual. brought to light at Enron Corp. just a little over one year ago, were in the making for years, and represented a "sad reflection of the "feel-good culture of the 1990s." Since then, she said "there has been a revolutionary change in the way that our markets are being regulated, that public companies are disclosing the results of their operations and that the accounting profession performs its assigned public responsibilities." "Most of the failures we've seen recently, we saw from the failure of company executives to honor their fiduciary duties," she said, adding that some problems also resulted from failed communication between government and the private sector. |
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