I want to commend the NACD on its mission to “advance exemplary board leadership” and on the extensive training and resources devoted to leading practices for board members, including audit committees and other specialized board committees.

The principal elements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act — strengthening the role of audit committees, establishing the PCAOB to oversee auditors, and enhancing auditor independence and corporate accountability — aligned the interests of the PCAOB and audit committees. We both focus on auditor oversight to help ensure independent, high quality, and reliable audits to protect investors.

Recent questions about financial reporting and auditing, as well as related regulatory initiatives in the U.S. and around the world, highlight the benefits of and need for greater communications between regulators and audit committees.

Today, following the recent financial crisis, we find ourselves once again evaluating how best to protect investors through high quality financial reporting and reliable audits.

As you know, in pursuing our core mission of protecting investors through audit oversight, the Board has a number of initiatives to consider improvements in major areas of audit practice. I’d like to provide an update on several of the Board’s key initiatives that have a direct impact on audit committees, including our concept release on auditor independence and audit firm rotation, the new auditing standard on communications with audit committees, and our recent informational release that deals with communications with audit committees about PCAOB inspection results.

(more…)