June 5, 2003
Recently, CalPERS sent letters to
Recently, CalPERS sent letters to the companies in the Wilshire 2500 index informing them that they withhold their vote for the election of audit committee members as directors if the auditor provides non-audit services. This appears to be aimed at certain forms of tax related consulting and information systems design and implementation services, which are permitted under SEC rules with audit committee approval – without regard to the dollar amount of those services or their relation to the amount of total audit fees. CalPERS does exclude preparation of tax forms and SEC compliance documents from the types of non-audit services that to which it objects.
Yesterday, the NASD proposed that the CEO and Chief Compliance Officer of member firm to jointly certify annually that the firm has adequate compliance and supervisory policies and procedures in place – see http://www.nasdr.com/pdf-text/0329ntm.pdf.