Blog: SEC removes Duhnke as PCAOB Chair

JDSupra blog ^

[Honest Nigerian]

On Friday, the SEC announced that it had “removed” William D. Duhnke III from the PCAOB and designated Duane M. DesParte to serve as Acting Chair, effective Friday. ... While the vote tally was not released, in light of their joint statement, it’s evident that Commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman voted against the action. Their statement objected not just to the removal of Duhnke, but also to the intent expressed to replace all five PCAOB members, including members whose terms have not yet expired:

[Honest Nigerian]

From the article, "There’s no official word on what happened here, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from speculating." and, "A future in which PCAOB members are replaced with every change in administration would run counter to the Sarbanes Oxley Act’s establishment of staggered terms for Board members, inject instability at the PCAOB, and undermine the PCAOB’s important mission by suggesting that it is subject to the vicissitudes of politics." ... A post about the article caught my attention when I saw the word "removed". On further investigation, I see that Biden's soldier's are tinkering with the controls that were put in place after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals. This is not the type of issue that would interest many consumers of news. But the effort that has been put into the tinkering is just another indication (suggestion) of how far the Left will go to undermine the controls previously legislated.

[jcon40]

Thanks for the post.

While I wasn’t sure what the PCAIB was I found this description helpful.

The PCAOB is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies in order to protect investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports. The PCAOB also oversees the audits of brokers and dealers, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws.

The PCAOB has four primary duties:

1. Register public accounting firms that prepare audit reports for issuers, brokers, and dealers.
2. Establish or adopt auditing and related attestation, quality control, ethics, and independence standards.
3. Inspect registered firms’ audits and quality control systems.
4. Investigate and discipline registered public accounting firms and their associated persons for violations of specified laws, rules, or professional standards.

Makes me ask (cough cough) why the Left wants to politicize this board ?