The market has seen a recent surge in mergers and acquisitions. In the first three quarters of 2015, there have been as many as 45 M&A deals, each of which were over $10 billion. Of those, 33, totaling almost $860 billion, targeted … Continue reading
Category Archives: Corporate Governance
2015 SEC Enforcement Actions Produce Decade High Results
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently released a summary of the agency’s enforcement activity for 2015. The announcement depicted a record-breaking number of enforcement actions initiated and monetary fines ordered. Over the past ten years, enforcement actions initiated by the SEC for a given year … Continue reading
2015 Audit Committee Transparency Barometer
Last week, the Center for Audit Quality released its second annual Audit Committee Transparency Barometer. The Barometer, compiled and published in partnership with Audit Analytics, evaluates the extent of audit committee disclosures for the S&P 1500 composite companies, broken out by Large Cap … Continue reading
Materiality: Valeant and Beyond
Every filing season has its fair share of surprises. The current one presents the drama of Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: VRX), which, as a main attraction, is by no means an everyday affair. After all, how often does one see the loss of $10 billion … Continue reading
Netflix Change in Amortization Estimate
In its Q3 2015 10-Q, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) disclosed a change in accounting estimate made to their amortization of certain intangible assets. 1. Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies In the third quarter of 2015, the … Continue reading
An Auditor Merry-go-Round
There has been much discussion in recent years concerning auditor tenure, with most of the attention fixed on companies with exceptionally long auditor relationships. In a previous post, we noted that the average auditor tenure among the Russell 3000 was 16 years. … Continue reading
Longest Comment Letter Conversations: A Five Year Analysis
In one of our recent posts, we noted that the average SEC comment letter conversation for 2014 consisted of 3.9 letters and lasted 48 days, significantly less than the 5 letters and 86 days we calculated for 2010. In this blog, we attempt to … Continue reading