Legal and Accounting Pitfalls For Buyers and Sellers
Earn-out agreements (“earn-outs”) are common features of business acquisitions, and indeed may be necessary in bringing a proposed transaction to fruition. Particularly when the sought-after price is predicated on the business’ very recent record of success, the buyer, naturally being less confident of the enterprise’s longer-term performance potential, may demand that a significant portion of…
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Barry Jay Epstein, Ph.D., CPA
Accountants Urged to Consider Information Overload
A recent report by the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has raised significant issues regarding the matter of information overload (Joint Oversight Group 2011).[1] Excruciatingly detailed financial reports have long been intuitively suspected as the reason why…
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Dev Team
Even Without SoX, Better Auditing is Here to Stay
In response to a spate of financial reporting and other corporate governance scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SoX”) was adopted by the United States Congress and signed by then-president George Bush. Once implemented, it had pervasive effects on how publicly-held companies in the U.S. are governed, including impacts on the membership and duties of…
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Dev Team
Canaries Gone AWOL: How Auditors Should Be Helping
During an out-of-court restructuring or a Chapter 11 bankruptcy[1] process, restructuring professionals do not uncommonly hear the statement (or think to themselves): “If only we could have gotten involved sooner.” Oftentimes, business managers that ignore warning signs of distress, apply short-term fixes, or delay restructurings only “dig a deeper hole,” destroying value for stakeholders and…
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Barry Jay Epstein, Ph.D., CPA
Nine Steps to Optimization of the Audit Committee
The audit committee, and its membership, are keys to the success of business operations. If the audit committee fails in executing its duties, there could be grave consequences for the entity, particularly in the areas of financial reporting and controls over the integrity of the financial reporting process. Without proper governance, monitoring and risk assessment…
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