NEW YORK (Reuters) – The head of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s largest accounting and consulting firm, said on Thursday he hoped for progress soon on a U.S.-China auditing oversight deal that could avert a disruption to capital markets.

Officials of all the “Big Four” accounting firms have been talking with regulators in China and the United States trying to encourage an agreement, PwC’s global chair Dennis Nally told Reuters in an interview.

“I hope to see some real progress over the next several months,” he said.

Regulators in the United States have for years sought access in China to inspect audit firms that check the books of China-based companies listed on U.S. exchanges. China has resisted allowing U.S. audit inspectors on its soil, citing sovereignty concerns.

A growing number of accounting scandals at Chinese companies listed in the United States has intensified pressure on U.S. regulators to take action.

“The (audit) profession is right in the middle of this, which is not good for the China markets or the U.S. markets,” Nally said.

The head of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which regulates U.S. auditors, told Reuters this week that China-based auditors could be barred from checking the books of U.S.-listed firms if an agreement is not reached next year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – PwC PWC.UL, the world’s largest accounting firm, reported a record $31.5 billion in revenues in 2012 and forecast a big shift in business to developing markets, including the Middle East, despite prolonged civil unrest in the region.

Helped by increased advisory and consulting work, revenues for the year ended June 30 rose by 8 percent from $29.2 billion in fiscal 2011, PwC said in a statement on Thursday.

Advisory and consulting revenues rose nearly 17 percent, while audit and related services rose over 3 percent and tax revenues went up nearly 8 percent, PwC said.

Developing markets in the Middle East and Africa will be a growing focus of PwC and its clients, despite civil uprisings and protests sweeping across the Arab world since late 2010, PwC Chairman Dennis Nally told Reuters.

“The opportunities are so significant that many of our clients are still very much committed to that part of the world and are continuing to invest,” Nally said.

“We’ve seen very, very little pullout of our client base from that region of the world.”

EXPECTS TO RECRUIT 25,000 GRADS

NEW YORK, Oct 2 (Reuters) – The chairman of the U.S. board that sets accounting standards for state and local governments will retire next June, a year ahead of the end of his term and as controversial new standards for pensions start kicking in.

Robert Attmore, a former auditor for New York state, has headed the nonprofit Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) since July 2004. His retirement was announced on Tuesday by the Financial Accounting Foundation, which oversees GASB.

Attmore, 66, said recent pressures on the Norwalk, Connecticut-based board were not a factor in his decision to leave.

“I’m a former auditor so I’m used to dealing with controversy,” Attmore told Reuters.

He said he is leaving to spend more time with his family in upstate New York and does not plan to take another full-time job.

The foundation said in a statement that it will soon begin a search for a successor.

The normally low-profile GASB attracted national attention this year as it adopted a tougher stance on pension accounting. Its accounting overhaul, taking effect in 2013 and 2014, will force many state and local governments to acknowledge that their pension plans are drastically underfunded.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Deloitte LLP Chief Executive Joe Echevarria on Monday fought back against allegations that his firm helped Standard Chartered hide transactions with Iran, saying charges by the top New York state banking regulator were “distortions of the facts.”

Echevarria, CEO since June 2011, defended Deloitte in his first interview since the firm was dragged into the spotlight over its independent reviews of British bank Standard Chartered.

The New York State Department of Financial Services, in a case involving U.S. anti-money laundering laws, last week said Deloitte consultants omitted critical details in a report to regulators about Standard Chartered.

The regulator cited an email from a Deloitte partner saying he drafted a “watered-down version” of the report after being asked by Standard Chartered to omit information.

“It’s an unfortunate choice of words that was pulled out of context,” Echevarria said.

A source close to the matter, who asked to remain anonymous because of its sensitive nature, said the Department of Financial Services has no plans to bring charges against Deloitte. A spokesman for the department refused to confirm or deny that statement.

Echevarria said he was standing in line with his 16-year-old son at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida a week ago when he first heard of the Standard Chartered matter by email.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Deloitte LLP Chief Executive Joe Echevarria on Monday fought back against allegations that his firm helped Standard Chartered hide transactions with Iran, saying charges by the top New York state banking regulator were “distortions of the facts.”

Echevarria, CEO since June 2011, defended Deloitte in his first interview since the firm was dragged into the spotlight over its independent reviews of British bank Standard Chartered.

The New York State Department of Financial Services, in a case involving U.S. anti-money laundering laws, last week said Deloitte consultants omitted critical details in a report to regulators about Standard Chartered.

The regulator cited an email from a Deloitte partner saying he drafted a “watered-down version” of the report after being asked by Standard Chartered to omit information.

“It’s an unfortunate choice of words that was pulled out of context,” Echevarria said.

A source close to the matter, who asked to remain anonymous because of its sensitive nature, said the Department of Financial Services has no plans to bring charges against Deloitte. A spokesman for the department refused to confirm or deny that statement.

Echevarria said he was standing in line with his 16-year-old son at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida a week ago when he first heard of the Standard Chartered matter by email.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a bid to lift some of the secrecy around U.S. audit firms, a watchdog board on Wednesday told corporate directors that they may seek out non-public information about auditor inspections.

U.S. law bars regulators from making public key parts of reports on inspections of audit firms. But the law does not prevent audit committees of corporate boards from seeking the reports from auditors, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board said on Wednesday.

“This is about empowering audit committees,” PCAOB Chairman James Doty said on a conference call with reporters.

The inspection reports are the “only place where they (audit committees) can find independent evaluations of their auditors,” he said.

Concerns about audit committees’ access to information came up at a PCAOB hearing in March on audit firm rotation, an idea being considered to improve auditor independence. Rotation is part of an aggressive agenda taken on by Doty since he was named chairman in January 2011.

“We’re aware that there’s a range of practice with audit committees,” Doty said on Wednesday. “That ranges from a high level of transparency and effectiveness to areas where we know it’s not so effective.”

Audit committees have become a key part of the U.S. system of investor protection since 2002′s Sarbanes-Oxley Act, approved after accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom.

By Kevin Drawbaugh and Dena Aubin

(Reuters) – When Peregrine Financial collapsed earlier this month, a nagging question resurfaced. As in the implosion of Lehman Brothers, the fall of Bernard Madoff and other cases in recent years, many asked: Where were the accountants?

That this question still arises could be seen as an indictment of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, enacted 10 years ago on Monday. The law was a response to accountants’ failures to sound the alarm about financial misconduct at Enron Corp, WorldCom and a host of other companies.

But, lawyers and analysts say that for the most part Sarbanes-Oxley is working. It has strengthened auditing, made the accounting industry a better steward of financial standards, and fended off Enron-sized book-cooking disasters.

Yes, it has fallen short in important ways, but these failures are on a more subtle level, the experts say.

The law, signed by President George Bush on July 30, 2002, created a new auditor watchdog, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). The law strengthened internal controls over companies’ accounts and set stiff criminal penalties for executives who cook the books. One of its toughest provisions required corporate executives to certify the accuracy of financial statements and imposed jail terms of up to 20 years for willful violations.

While only a handful of people have faced criminal charges over false statement certification, the Securities and Exchange Commission has invoked that part of Sarbanes-Oxley to bring more than 200 civil cases.

By Aruna Viswanatha and Dena Aubin

(Reuters) – The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday sought to delay its legal battle with a Chinese unit of accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu over audit documents, citing ongoing negotiations with Chinese regulators.

In a filing with a U.S. federal court, the SEC said it wanted a six-month stay so it could try to work out an arrangement with Chinese regulators to get audit documents.

The SEC in September had asked the court to force Deloitte to produce records related to possible accounting fraud at Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd, but Deloitte has resisted, citing Chinese secrecy laws.

Longtop, a China-based company that was listed in the United States, was charged in November with failing to file accurate financial reports.

The SEC has also been negotiating with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on cross-border cooperation, including access to documents. In its court filing on Wednesday, it said no agreement has been reached but talks continue.

The SEC’s court action on Wednesday could signal progress in the talks, said Paul Gillis, an accounting professor at Peking University in Beijing who has closely followed the matter.

NEW YORK, July 13 (Reuters) – A full-scale adoption of international accounting standards by the United States has little support and few investors or companies are prepared for it, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday.

In a long-awaited staff report, the SEC said a wholesale switch to international standards would strain the resources of U.S. companies and a staged transition has more support.

The SEC, responsible for U.S. accounting rules, has for years been weighing a decision on whether to move U.S. companies to international financial reporting standards, known as IFRS and set by the London-based International Accounting Standards Board.

More than 100 countries have switched to IFRS, while the United States still uses generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP.

SEC commissioners have been waiting on the staff report to help them make a decision on whether to switch to international standards. The report made no recommendations but outlined many drawbacks of IFRS, especially a wholesale switch.

Accounting experts said it held few surprises.

“The SEC essentially had zero likelihood of choosing (full-scale) adoption,” said Bruce Pounder, director of professional programs for SmartPros, a firm that provides education for accountants.

NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) – Keep it short.

So said the professional group that sets U.S. accounting standards in a statement on Thursday about the financial reports companies issue each year.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is seeking comment through Nov. 16 on ways to make financial reports more relevant and useful.

Cutting the volume of verbiage is not the main goal but will probably be a result, the Financial Accounting Standards Board said.

“Financial reports have become too long, and thus much less effective tools for communicating with investors,” said FASB spokeswoman Christine Klimek. Often the information investors need is there but “hidden in plain sight,” she said.

From basic tables showing income, cash flow and assets and liabilities, annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission have ballooned as accounting standards have grown more complex over the years.

“The real problem is not so much the financial statements themselves, it’s the SEC filings surrounding them which have gotten really long and really boring,” said Michael Young, a partner at law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and expert on financial reporting.