Review Comments | 11.16.09

• Your Nominations for ‘Accountants of the Decade’ Are Now Being Accepted – Still accepting noms for the prestigious title to bestowed upon the top bean counter of the last ten years. Peter Olinto and TF are the current faves. [GC]
• Why Citi investors should never sleep – Um, because it was Vik’s idea to pay back TARP? [CFOZone]
• Christmas Gifts for that Special Tax Person – How about a 1040 from 1913? [TaxProf Blog]
• 2009 Year-end Money Moves: Taxes – Bone up, seventeen days and counting. [Don’t Mess With Taxes]

• Internal auditor faces charges in Satyam scandal – India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also claims that have more evidence against PwC. [Accountancy Age]
• Does Sarbox Reduce Restatements? – One study suggests just that, “The study, from research firm Audit Analytics, suggests that companies that have not yet had their auditors review their internal-control reports are more likely to have a restatement than larger companies, even though they claimed to have effective controls.” [CFO]
• Stanford Offshore Investors Suspected of Cheating IRS – We realize this is hard to believe. [Bloomberg]
• Bank of America to Repay $45 Billion in TARP – Drinks are on Ken Lewis. [WSJ]
• SEC Obtains Asset Freeze Against Co-Founder of Canopy Financial in $75 Million Offering Fraud – Not to mention the stolen letterhead: “According to the SEC’s complaint, the fraud came to light when KPMG discovered that Canopy had been claiming that its financial statements for 2007 and 2008 were audited by KPMG. In fact, KPMG had never been retained by Canopy to audit its financial statements and had never opined on the financial condition of the company. KPMG issued a cease-and-desist letter to Canopy demanding that it stop the unauthorized use of KPMG’s name and the audit report purportedly issued by KPMG.” [SEC Press Release]

• Kim Pardons Journalists – Arkansas moxie does it again. We never doubted it for a second. [WSJ]
• SEC accuses GE of accounting fraud – Cue a smug but probably still unsatisfied Bill O’Reilly. [FT Alphaville]
• PayPal Users Hit by Global Service Outage – How will anyone pay for the Lehman schwag? [WSJ]
• SEC set to target flash trading – “The US Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to clamp down on lightning-fast “flash” trades made on electronic trading systems amid growing concerns that the practice puts some investors at a disadvantage.” And disadvantages are not the American way. [FT.com]