AUDIT COMMITTEE AND AUDITOR OVERSIGHT UPDATE

At the beginning of each year, many accounting and consulting firms present their views on the issues that should be on audit committee agendas during the next 12 months.  For 2026, those papers include:   BDO, Audit Committee Priorities for 2026 .   EY Center for Board Matters, 2026 audit committee priorities: navigating complexity and change .   KPMG Board Leadership Center, On the 2026 audit committee agenda .   Protiviti, Setting the 2026 Audit Committee Agenda .   PwC Go

The Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) has released an analysis of S&P 500 company Form 10-K disclosures on climate, artificial intelligence, and digital assets.  Analysis of S&P 500 Companies’ 10-Ks  provides “a snapshot of what S&P 500 companies typically disclose and where they disclose that information within the 10-K” on these three topics. The CAQ’s analysis examines the most recent Form 10-Ks for S&P 500 companies as of June 2025. (These reports generally relate to the com

Members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Investor Advisory Group (IAG) have published The Second Annual Investor Advisory Group Most Decision-Useful Critical or Key Audit Matters For 2024 .  The report discusses four topics:  a brief history of critical audit matters (CAMs), the IAG’s activities related to CAMs, the findings of the IAG’s CAM evaluation process, and suggestions for improving CAMs. For audit committees, the IAG report provides insight into how

On December 16, the European Parliament approved Omnibus I , a package of amendments to the E.U.’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD or CS3D).  These reforms, proposed by the European Commission in February 2025, reduce sustainability reporting burdens, simplify the CSRD and CSDDD, and narrow the scope of companies subject to the directives.  See E.U. is Dialing Back Sustainability Reporting and Due

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins has announced that the Commission will undertake a comprehensive review of Regulation S-K, which contains the core public company disclosure requirements.  See Statement on Reforming Regulation S-K . In his January 13 statement, Chair Atkins said that during the past 40 years, the requirements of Regulation S-K have “grown from the size of a gym locker to the size of an artificial-intelligence data center” and that the disc