The Andersen accounting firm scored a big victory in its ongoing efforts to overturn a criminal conviction stemming from its involvement in the Enron debacle, with the Supreme Court agreeing to hear an appeal in April.

Big Four accounting firm Deloitte has accused a smaller rival, Grant Thornton, of hindering its audit of Parmalat, the once-mighty Italian dairy giant that collapsed amid accusations of widespread fraud.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board last week approved a revised budget for calendar year 2005 reducing the Board’s 2005 accounting support fee from $152.5 million to $136.1 million.

Financial Executives International has identified the top 10 financial reporting challenges for 2005. These challenges will impact the way companies manage their businesses, report their financial results, and compensate their employees. The challenges include:Stock option expensing. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has mandated that all stock compensation be expensed beginning June 30, 2005 for most public companies. Smaller public companies and private firms have until the first annual reporting period after Dec.

Deloitte & Touche's annual Global Financial Services Industry Outlooks examine the trends that industry executives, investors and consumers can anticipate in 2005. Based on the firm's in-depth experience in the financial services industry, it expects these trends to include: Banking: Getting Closer to the Retail CustomerIn order to benefit from the retail market's growth opportunities and stable revenue streams, banks will need to learn from leading retailers how to use their branches to build relationships with customers and differentiate their brands.

Fannie Mae, which faces a possible $9 billion restatement, is also looking at yet another investigation and the possibility of a management shake-up at the top.The Wall Street Journal reported that Fannie Mae's board of directors met most of Sunday to discuss whether changing top executives would give the mortgage finance giant a “fresh start” with regulators.The company did not issue a statement about the meeting and a company spokesman declined comment, the newspaper reported.Fannie Mae is already being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commi

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on Thursday, published FASB Statement No. 123 (revised 2004), Share-Based Payment. Statement 123(R) will provide investors and other users of financial statements with more complete and neutral financial information by requiring that the compensation cost relating to share-based payment transactions be recognized in financial statements. That cost will be measured based on the fair value of the equity or liability instruments issued.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board voted unanimously at its open meeting to propose for public comment certain ethics and independence rules concerning independence, tax services, and contingent fees.The Board’s proposed rules fall into three areas. First, the proposed rules would identify three circumstances in which the provision of tax services impairs an auditor's independence: Proposed Rule 3521 would treat registered public accounting firms as not independent of their audit clients if they enter into contingent fee arrangements with those clients.

Before Sarbanes-Oxley, the law stated that investors who were made aware of fraudulent activities had to file lawsuits against the misbehaving companies within one year of discovering the fraud and within three years of the actual fraudulent activity.