The board said it won't make its August 2004 findings public because the firms -- PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, and KPMG -- had addressed the issues within the 12-month timeframe mandated by a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The act provides that "no portions of the inspection report that deal with criticisms of or potential defects in the quality control systems of the firm under inspection shall be made public if those criticisms or defects are addressed by the firm, to the satisfaction of the Board, not later than 12 months after the date of the inspection report."

PCAOB Acting Chairman Bill Gradison said keeping the findings private provides an "incentive" for the firms to "improve their practices and procedures."

The PCAOB published two releases on this topic. The first describes how PCAOB determines if a firm has fixed any problems. The second describes observations about efforts undertaken by the four largest U.S. accounting firms to address quality control concerns identified during the board's initial inspections of those firms in 2004.

The second release also includes a general summary of some of the types of steps taken by the firms to address the PCAOB's quality control concerns in areas such as audit performance, evaluation and compensation of partners, independence, acceptance and continuance of clients, and supervision of foreign affiliates.

The two releases are available at www.pcaobus.org.