In the request for comments they state “We are particularly interested to hear your views on rules that affect smaller reporting companies, as well as smaller companies that are not subject to the Commission’s reporting requirements but seek to raise capital in the exempt markets.”

The SEC request is looking for comments within the following 3 areas where you can post and read comments posted by others:

• Regulations and Exemptions Relating to the Offer and Sale of Securities
• Disclosure and Reporting Requirements
• Updating Commission Rules to Promote Economic Growth

As of today there are very few comments posted and most of them relate to exempting smaller reporting companies from the XBRL requirements citing cost constraints. 

I urge everyone in the smaller reporting company arena to take advantage of the opportunity to make suggestions.

This was an intentional fraud. Neither financial statement nor internal control audits are designed to guarantee the detection of fraud.  Yes, an internal control audit would have disclosed the existence of significant deficiencies and material weaknesses. An expanded internal control review might have even stumbled across the defalcation. More likely it would have only resulted in an adverse opinion on the internal control systems by the company’s auditor. This could have been an alert to investors, but more likely it would have been ignored as the SEC’s own studies have indicated. Integrated audits have not resulted in a higher level of confidence by investors. Fraud audits for all issuers require a lower level of materiality that can not be justified economically.

If in this particular case the amount embezzled was material for any of the five years effected it would seem that it should have been detected under normal financial statement audit procedures in at least one year. A failure by the audit firm  to properly complete an audit is not justification for adding another layer of regulation on small issuers under SOX.

The company had retained the same national audit firm for the past five years. Based on the professional fees disclosed in the proxy statement it is possible that Koss was a small fish in the big pond of this national firm and may or may not have gotten the service it needed and deserved. Some large national firms have been known to ‘rank’ their clients. If you are not the big dog on the porch you are not likely to get the same level of expertise, experience and service as the bigger clients.

Cost. Certainly for Koss  the cost of an ICFR program – including both the external audit fees and the internal program costs -  would have been less expensive than the amount embezzled, but requiring all firms to bear a cost to ‘potentially’ prevent an occasional fraud loss of this type is ridiculous. Theoretically, 404(b) would cost a firm similar in size to Koss, $250,000 annually (ballpark WAG).  One-third to one-half of that being for the external auditors. So the investors in Koss would have been out something in excess of a million dollars. The cost/benefit equation for requiring this universally just wouldn’t seem to balance, unless you subscribe to the premise that something graeter than 10% of all statements are fraudulent.

There are already criminal and civil penalties in place to protect the investor from this type of malfeasance as we’ve discussed in our prior posts. Another in the form of 404(b)  is not needed. The responsibility to the shareholders rightfully lies with the Audit Committe of the Board, the Board of Directors and management. If more company oversight is needed and beneficial those charged with governance are ostensibly sophisticated enough and in the best analytical position to know and provide it.

I still view the cost of 404(b) as an ineffective unsupportable dissipation of investors equity. We’ve had some great dialog on this topic in the past.  Did I change anyone’s mind?

Currently, US GAAP is a rules based set of standards. While the end result of their application frequently results in worthless unsupportable financial reporting, the issuer and their auditor have but to point to the ‘rules’ in defense. On the other hand, IFRS is principles based, and simpler to apply.  But it can and frequently does require the issuer and his auditor to exercise judgment.  Judgment that can be questioned, criticized and  litigated.

Please don’t misunderstand.  Professionally in my opinion the quality of financial reporting will be significantly improved by the application of sound principles. IFRS is long overdue. Without liability reform, however, I fear financial reporting and assurance services will quickly follow the health care industry in terms of cost to the providers.

Maybe I’m just paranoid in my advancing years.

For the most part SAB 113 is pretty straight forward, however, as is the case with many of the SABs, hidden in the minutiae are land mines for the unwary or uninformed.  Correspondingly you would be well served to skim through it for any matters that might affect your company, and then discuss them with your audit firm.

Additionally, on October 26, 2009 additional Oil and Gas Rules were released.  These compliance and disclosure interpretations (C & DIs) relate to Regs S-X and S-K.  There is some important information here which is very relevant and brief!

I believe the intent of the critical accounting policies disclosures is for issuers to identify and disclose only those accounting policies that require significant judgment and estimation with a degree of uncertainty. Further, simply narrating the assumptions used in a Black-Scholes model for valuing stock options does not provide the appropriate information contained in the rules release. Disclosures related an issuers critical accounting policies (estimates) should include the methodology used in developing assumptions and the corresponding estimates, how the estimates impact the financial statements, and the effect of a change in the estimates and / or underlying assumptions.

The SEC provides two questions issuers need ask in making the “critical” determination:

1. Did the estimate require making assumptions about matters that are highly uncertain?
2. Would reasonably developed, different estimates / assumptions, at the time or in future periods, have a material impact on our financial statements?

When both questions are answered yes, it should be included in this section of the MD&A.

The included disclosures should not simply be boilerplate (like significant accounting policies tend to be) or be overly accounting technical (as “plain English” as possible). Further, the SEC expects varying numbers of critical accounting policies amongst issuers, but they have indicated three to five as a reasonable range.

The rules release provides several examples of disclosures that can help issuers develop the approach and content for appropriate inclusion in future filings.