Last year, together with Protiviti, Audit Analytics reviewed the progress of public companies towards adoption of the new 2013 COSO Framework. Data gathered from fiscal 2015 annual reports shows that the implementation of COSO for audited ICFRs is almost complete: 96% of … Continue reading
Author Archives: Mercedes Erickson
The Impact of M&A on PCAOB Firm Population
Since the PCAOB first started disclosing it, the total number of accounting firms registered with the regulator to perform audits for public companies has been a dynamic metric. For various reasons, the number of registered firms has waxed and waned. One clear … Continue reading
General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer Departures: A Five Year Review
Last year we published a detailed report on public-company CEO and CFO departures. In this post, we look into the departure statistics for another core member of the management team, namely the general counsel or chief legal officer. Although the disclosure requirements are not … Continue reading
IPO Law Firm Leaders: 2015
Four law firms strengthened their position in the initial public offering segment this past year, widening their market share from 50% in 2014 to about 57% in 2015. While the overall number of S-1 IPOs declined (from 242 in 2014 to only … Continue reading
Review Notes, Volume 1: D&O Changes
Note: This post has been edited from a previous version. At Audit Analytics, we review hundreds of thousands of filings per year. In the course of those reviews, we come across typos, communications apparently not meant for public disclosure, and … Continue reading
Enron Saga Concludes
After more than a decade of criminal proceedings and appeals, the civil court case against former Enron senior executive Jeffrey K. Skilling for his involvement in the historic fraud has finally concluded. On December 8, 2015, the SEC obtained a summary … Continue reading
Peer Benchmarking and Trends in Executive Compensation
In a recent edition of the Big Number, the Wall Street Journal’s Maxwell Murphy reported that 96% of S&P 500 companies disclosed in their 2015 proxy statements that they used a peer group to gauge executive pay. Generally, peer groups used for benchmarking … Continue reading