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Accounting News Roundup: Madoff Ex-Controller Expected to Take a Plea; PwC’s Nally Works Hard for the Money; Deck the Halls with Tax Art | 12.16.11

MF Global Used Customers’ Money Days Before Company’s Failure, CME Says [Bloomberg]
CME Group detailed its dealings with MF Global in documents released yesterday by the oversight panel of the House Financial Services Committee. Christine Serwinski, chief financial officer for North America at MF Global, and Edith O’Brien, a treasurer, told Mike Procajlo, an exchange auditor, at around 1 a.m. on Oct. 31 in Serwinski’s Chicago office that the customer money was transferred on Oct. 27 and Oct. 28 and possibly Oct. 26, according to a CME Group timeline. “About $700 million was moved to the broker-dealer side of the business to meet liquidity issues in a series of transactions on Thursday, Friday and possibly Wednesday,” Serwinski and O’Brien told Procajlo hours before the firm filed for the eighth-largest bankruptcy following record quarterly losses and $6.3 billion in trades on European sovereign debt.

Madoff’s Ex-Controller Expected to Plead Guilty Next Week [DealBook]

Enrica Cotellessa-Pitz, the former controller of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, will admit on Monday to falsifying the company’s records and making phony submissions to government regulators, according to a letter filed by federal prosecutors on Thursday. She has not been charged yet but is cooperating with the government, the letter said. Ms. Cotellessa-Pitz would be the 11th person criminally charged in the Madoff case.
 
WithumSmith+Brown Merges in EisnerLubin [AT]
WS+B will add 50 employees, including nine partners, by adding NYC-based EinserLubin.
 
Dennis Nally of PwC: 'If auditors aren't doing enough, who's going to pay for them to do more?' [Guardian]

Asked about his salary, he looks at his PR man, who quickly steps in to say it is not disclosed. We can presume it was in the millions, as PwC's UK chairman, Ian Powell, took home £3.7m this year. "I would say I earn every dollar I make," says Nally, a fit-looking 59-year-old. 
 
PwC subject of probe into BarCap compliance [Reuters]
Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is being investigated over its auditing of Barclays Capital Securities in relation to the investment bank's compliance with rules governing the protection of client money. The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board said on Friday its investigation would cover PwC's conduct in preparing reports on Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank PLC, to the Financial Services Authority.
 
Woman's breast implant disappears during Pilates [MSNBC]
During a Pilates routine, she was doing a Valsalva maneuver, a breathing technique in which a person takes a deep breath and holds it while bearing down. […] Doing a Valsalva maneuver increases pressure inside your chest cavity. In this lady's case, enough pressure built to essentially send her right implant through the thin tissue between her ribs and into the space in between the lungs.
 
Christmas Gifts for that Special Tax Person [TaxProf]
Something to accompany that CPA certificate on your office wall.
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