PCAOB Confirms Roundtable for March 31, Announces Participants.

Business Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 27, 2003

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board today announced further details regarding its roundtable meeting on March 31 to discuss issues relating to the registration and oversight of non-U.S. public accounting firms.

The roundtable will take place from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. and will be organized into two sessions. The first session, from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m., will address the appropriate scope of the Board's oversight of non-U.S. public accounting firms, including the Board's inspections and disciplinary programs, and the Board's access to work papers.

The second session, from 4:15 - 5:00 p.m., will cover issues related to registration of non-U.S. public accounting firms.

The roundtable will be held in the William O. Douglas Room of the SEC, 450 5th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Both sessions of the roundtable meeting will be webcast and open to the public. Real time and archived audio webcasts of the roundtable will be accessible at www.connectlive.com/events/pcaob/.

The Board has invited representatives of non-U.S. regulators and accounting firms and investor groups to participate. The Commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission will also be in attendance.

Entities whose participation has been confirmed include:

-- European Commission

-- Wirtschaftspruferkammer (German Chamber of Accountants)

-- Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO)

-- Department of Trade and Industry (United Kingdom)

-- Financial Services Agency (Japan)

-- Canadian Public Accountability Board

-- Embassy of Australia

-- Federation des Experts Comptables (FEE)

-- Ernst & Young (Brussels, Belgium)

-- PricewaterhouseCoopers (Toronto, Canada)

-- Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (Santiago, Chile)

-- Pennsylvania Public Employees' Retirement System

-- State of Wisconsin Investment Board

The Board continues to encourage both U.S. and non-U.S. parties with views on the proposed registration system as well as the issues to be discussed at the roundtable to provide comments in advance of the Board's final rulemaking in these areas.

With respect to the proposed registration system (PCAOB Rulemaking Docket Matter No. 001), written comments must be received by the Board by 5:00 PM (EST) on Monday, March 31, 2003. The Board will carefully consider all comments concerning the registration system that are submitted either in writing or through remarks made at the roundtable.

Following the close of the comment period on the proposed registration system, the Board will determine whether to amend its proposals, will adopt final registration rules, and will submit those rules to the Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. Pursuant to Section 107 of the Act, Board rules do not take effect until approved by the Commission.

More detailed instructions for submitting comments to the Board can be found at www.pcaobus.org.

With respect to other issues raised at the roundtable that are beyond the scope of the proposed registration system, the Board will carefully consider any written comments submitted and any remarks made at the roundtable in its future rulemaking and policies related to the oversight of non-U.S. auditors.

PCAOB is a private, non-profit corporation, created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Its mission is to protect investors in U.S. securities markets and to further the public interest by ensuring that public company financial statements are audited according to the highest standards of quality, independence, and ethics.

The Board will be funded principally by fees collected from public companies. The costs of processing and reviewing public accounting firm registration applications will be recovered from registration fees paid by those firms.