Audit Committee Overload

Recent developments have resulted in an increase of the workload borne by the public company audit committee. Those developments include new issuer obligations as a result of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; continuing restatements, fraud, errors, internal investigations and SEC enforcement proceedings; ongoing onslaught of new and complex accounting and financial reporting pronouncements; auditor independence rules; and, review and approval of related person transactions. The audit committee may now find itself filling a litany of new roles, including investigator, arbiter and advisor as to diagnosis and remediation of company problems, corporate monitor, and primary liaison with the SEC and other government organizations.

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