|
 |
Accounting Panel Adopts Ethics Code WASHINGTON, July 1, 2003 (Associated Press) The new agency created to oversee the accounting industry voted Monday to set standards for its members and staff to guard against conflicts of interest. [Among the rules approved Monday, members and staff can't work for or accept payment from accounting firms, aside from fixed continuing payments under standard retirement arrangements. The rules also require that board members and staff disclose their personal investments. Spouses, spousal equivalents and dependents are also subject to the ethics code.]
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board also agreed to seek members for a new advisory group that mixes investors, corporate finance experts and accounting industry professionals.
Congress created the five-member accounting oversight board last summer to combat a wave of corporate accounting scandals.
Board members also voted to provide annual public reports on their investments and will require staff to make the same disclosure to the board.
Accounting board rules require final approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Former New York Federal Reserve Bank president William McDonough, who heads the accounting board, endorsed the ethical standards and promised that no one group would dominate the board's advisory panel.
The advisory group will consist of about two dozen individuals. Under new rules approved Monday, the advisory group must hold public meetings semiannually and annually but will be free to meet privately or by telephone in the interim. All recommendations by the advisory group must be madde in public, however.
Advisory group members won't be paid for their service. The board expects to make appointments after a 45-day nomination period, most likely after final SEC action on the proposal. Board members generally will serve for two years, McDonough said.
The accounting board also announced it will hold a special meeting on July 29 in Washington, D.C., to discuss rules on corporate internal controls.
As part of the last year's accounting reform bill, Congress ordered public companies to provide annual reports on the quality of their internal controls and required corporate auditors to provide their assessment of clients' internal controls.
-- Judith Burns, Dow Jones Newswires
2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
