Reaching Out to Federal Regulators

Enforcement Newsletter

February 2014

The Enforcement Resources Committee has recently focused on the issue of federal referrals of enforcement matters involving CPAs and CPA firms. Realizing that more coordination between the boards and federal/regional agencies would be beneficial, the Committee began an organized effort to step into the gap between these two entities.

Seeking to gain a better understanding of the federal enforcement process as well as assisting boards in receiving/handling federal referrals, Colleen Conrad, Maria Caldwell and Stacey Grooms represented the Committee in meetings with Department of Labor, Securities Exchange Commission and Internal Revenue Service representatives in Washington D.C., during December 3-5, 2013. These meetings resulted in new information that is being shared with the boards regarding federal enforcement matters through the Quarterly Enforcement Reports, and also provided the opportunity to invite representatives of both the DOL and IRS to speak at the ED and Legal conferences in March 2014.

Further meetings with the PCAOB and other federal/regional agencies are currently in the scheduling process. If appropriate, a series of resource modules utilizing the Brainshark platform may be created at a later date to house procedures, forms, contact information, and other helpful information for each agency to assist the boards with federal referrals.