A Study Finds That Most Boards Lack Climate Expertise
In his 2021 Letter to CEOs, BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink emphasized the importance of board oversight of company climate-change strategy....
BlackRock Calls for Disclosure and Board Oversight of Company Plans for the Net-Zero Economy
Each year, Laurence Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, sends an open letter to corporate CEOs. Last...
Congress Takes Aim at Listed Chinese Companies but Might Hit Some U.S. Multinationals
On December 18, President Trump signed the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA). The legislation, which passed both houses...
If at First You Don’t Succeed: SEC Adopts Revised Resource Extraction Disclosure Rule
On December 16, the SEC adopted rules that will require domestic or foreign SEC-reporting companies that engage in resource extraction to...
The CAQ on Auditors and Cybersecurity Disclosure
The Center for Audi Quality has released The Role of Auditors in Company-Prepared Cybersecurity Information: Present and Future. The CAQ...
Happy New Year! Protiviti’s 2021 Audit Committee Agenda Suggestions
With the arrival of 2021, audit firms, consultants, and others will be offering suggestions on issues that audit committees should focus...
What is the Audit Committee’s Role in ESG Oversight?
During the past year, many public companies have focused on the opportunities and challenges that environmental, social, and governance...
PCAOB Issues Guidance for Audit Committees on New Estimates and Use of Specialists Standards
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has released an Audit Committee Resource entitled New PCAOB Requirements Regarding Auditing...
Two Studies Raise Questions About Audit Partner Rotation
In 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act required audit partner rotation on a five-year cycle. The theory behind this requirement was that long...
With Sustainability Reporting on the March, Protiviti Has Ten Questions Directors Should Ask
The rapid growth in voluntary public company sustainability, or environmental, social, and governance (ESG), reporting is one of the...
As Transparency Inches Forward, Audit Committees are Disclosing More About Cyber Risk Oversight
On October 12, the Center for Audit Quality and research firm Audit Analytics released 2020 Audit Committee Transparency Barometer (2020...
KPMG Takes the Pulse of Audit Committees, and Deloitte Has Suggestions for Their Agendas
2020 has been an extraordinary year. For most audit committees, the issues that have dominated their agendas are far different from those...
PCAOB Previews 2019 Inspection Reports
While the PCAOB has not yet released its 2019 inspection reports for the large accounting firms, it has provided a preview of its 2019...
PCAOB Interim Analysis Finds that Investor Interest in CAMs is Still Evolving
The PCAOB has released Interim Analysis Report (October 29, 2020) (Interim Analysis), an assessment of the initial impact of auditor...
Listen to Your Auditor or Pay the Price Later
An academic paper sheds light on audit adjustments and the impact of declining to implement them. In The Costs of Waiving Audit...
How Low Can They Go? Restatements Hit Another New Low in 2019
Audit Analytics (AA) has released its annual report on public company restatements, 2019 Financial Restatements: An Nineteen Year...
More Public Companies Are Disclosing the Board’s Cybersecurity Risk Oversight Role
The EY Center for Board Matters (EY Center) has released its third annual analysis of cybersecurity-related disclosures by Fortune 100...
How Audit Committees Can Get More Value from Internal Audit
The audit committee typically has oversight responsibility for the internal audit function and, conversely, relies on internal audit to...