This trend has now reached California, so it's about to become a whole lot more meaningful.

Again, this may be a matter of paperwork, but at minimum, it seems like banks will have to spend time and money straightening out their claims to homes on loans they've securitized.

Submitted by Caleb Newquist, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

Since the PCAOB is here to stay, the SEC figured it was probably best that they get some people sit on this thing to, ya know, help protect the investors, the public at large, so on and so forth.

The problem, as it appears to us, is that Mary Schapiro and the gang are plumb out of ideas for nominations. Accordingly, they're out there looking for help from some of the best and beardest, including the Beard, acting PCAOB chair Dan Goelzer, AICPA President and CEO Barry Melancon and a few other noted notables.

The Supreme Court this week rejected a challenge by employers to San Francisco's universal healthcare program. The justices denied an appeal from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association of a lower court ruling that upheld the program's requirement that employers help pay the bill or give their workers health coverage.

We're not quite as sure as others are that yesterday's Supreme Court decision regarding SarbOx is so utterly meaningless regarding the future of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Sure, the court said the law is still fully in effect, blah, blah, blah.

A ruling by the US Supreme Court last Thursday effectively ended US jurisdiction in so-called foreign cubed cases. These lawsuits are where foreign shareholders in foreign companies listed in foreign exchanges seek to bring cases against those companies in US courts.
 
The Court threw out a case brought by three Australian shareholders against Aussie bank NAB. The shareholders claimed that they had been misled on the performance of the bank's US mortgage servicing subsidiary. But the justices said that the section of the Exchange Law that they were using was never intended to cover foreign companies or their foreign shareholders especially when those securities were bought on a foreign exchange. This was despite the alleged fraud happening within the US.
 
The ruling has massive implications for a number of foreign companies who are currently being sued by overseas shareholders in US courts. These companies include Porsche, Vivendi, EADS, Infineon and Alstom. While these companies will still be sued by their investors in their home jurisdictions, they will now in all likelihood escape trial in the US.
 
Shareholders like to sue in the US because the securities laws are seen to favor investors over corporate management. 

Good news for lawyers and bad news for companies.

The folks in Washington who are trying to piece together the details of the financial overhaul bill want to cast a wider net of potential defendants in a securities fraud.

So, you think you can save money by hiring illegals at lower salaries than U.S. citizens and legal residents are willing to take? Think again.

Just ask the folks at carpet maker Mohawk Industries.

What's the logical conclusion of the recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations are legally individuals and, therefore, have the same rights to free speech given to the average Joe?

That corporations should be able to run for elected office, of course. And assume appointed judicial positions.

The Supreme Court just obliterated long-standing restrictions on how much corporations can spend to support or oppose political candidates. And it did so, largely based on an astoundingly hypocritical and nonsensical issue.

 The 5-4 vote overturned a ruling that corporations can't use their own money for campaign ads, although it didn't allow them to  make direct contributions. Also, the court struck down the McCain-Feingold provision prohibiting corporations and labor unions from financing political ads shortly before an election.