Over the past few years, a number of high-profile companies, from AIG to Qwest, have been caught issuing financial statements that were, to put it mildly, less than accurate. How can other CFOs ensure that their firms are not part of this group?

A recent study by the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) sheds some light on the factors that can lead to fraud, as well as the attributes that need to be in place to minimize the risk of fraud. The study, "Deterring and Detecting Financial Reporting Fraud: A Platform for Action," incorporates the input gained from more than 100 participants in five roundtable discussions that occurred in both the US and the UK over the past year. Among the participants were corporate executives, members of boards of directors, internal and external auditors, investors, regulators, academics and others.

Two accounting firms agreed to pay a total of $1.7 million and a certified public accountant (CPA) agreed to a permanent bar stemming from Commodity Futures Trading Commission charges of failing to audit properly a client that was earlier accused of fraud and misuse of customer funds.

According to the CFTC, McGladrey & Pullen, LLP and Altschuler, Melvoin & Glasser LLP and partner G. Victor Johnson II failed to properly audit Sentinel Management Group, a Northbrook, Ill.-based futures commission merchant that declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2007. M&P acquired assets relating to AMG's audit practice in 2006.

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

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

American Apparel's downward spiral continues as Bloomberg reports that the company has been subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY over the company's "change in accounting firms."

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

The PCAOB has had a pretty good run of late. It all started with the SCOTUS handing them a loss that was really a win and the Board has, most recently, gotten ambitious with new risk assessment standards. What's more is the call of acting Chair Dan Goelzer to have the Board's enforcement inspections held publicly so audit firms can't get all mysterio about what they did and did not do to warrant said inspection.

It looks like the folks who brought us Sarbanes-Oxley need a dose of the governance and accounting rules themselves.

A new US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concluded that improvements are needed in controls over the preparation of the US consolidated financial statements.

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

As we've mentioned, it's been a rough summer - hell a rough year - for KV Pharmaceutical. The company paid nearly $26 million to the Justice Department back in February, had massive layoffs in March and their Chairman and CFO back in June.

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.

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

Late on Friday, it was reported that Sue Sachdeva will plead guilty to six felony counts in the Koss embezzlement case that was discovered at the end of last year.

It looks like audit fees are stabilizing.

The 150 publicly-held companies responding to a recent survey paid an average of $4.8 million in audit fees in 2009, down 2.4 percent from the total shelled out by these respondents the prior fiscal year.