Various and Sundry Announcements Coming From the Commission on Friday

The Office of the Chief Accountant’s Financial Reporting Series

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant (“OCA”) will be hosting a series of ongoing roundtables, dubbed the Financial Reporting Series, to facilitate discussion around emerging and implementation issues in the financial reporting system.

The objectives of the Financial Reporting Series are to:

• provide the Commission, FASB and PCAOB with useful information about matters affecting the financial reporting system;

• for the OCA to work with the FASB and PCAOB to ensure they consider appropriate actions to emerging issues and changes in the business environment; and

• for the OCA, in coordination with the Division of Corporation Finance, to consider whether changes to the Commission’s rule and regulations would be appropriate.

The OCA expects to hold three such roundtables each year, depending on the number of issues that come up and, of course, Commission’s budgetary constraints.

Roundtable topics may include: public comments, matters arising from the OCA’s research and interactions with the capital markets, and input from the FASB, PCAOB and other offices and divisions of the Commission.

The OCA is also open to suggestions and you can email potential topics to FRS@sec.gov or contact the OCA through its webpage.

On Friday the Commission announced the Financial Reporting Series’ first roundtable, to be held on November 8, 2011, which will address “the extent to which financial reporting should include measurement uncertainties, and the information investors find  important to understanding and assessing those uncertainties.”

The OCA also released a briefing paper outlining the issues in greater detail and including a list of nine questions that will be addressed at the roundtable.

30th Annual Forum on Small Business Capital Formation

The Commission announced that it will hold it’s 30th Annual Forum on Small Business Capital Formation on November 17th, 2011.

The forum will include two panels, one addressing current capital formation issues for private companies, and the other initial public offerings and securities regulation involving smaller reporting companies.

The final report from last year’s forum and a summary of the top recommendations can be found here.

Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies

The Commission announced that it’s new Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies will hold an open meeting on October 31, 2011 to discuss capital formation issues relevant to small and emerging companies.

Senate Confirmation of Commissioners Aguilar and Gallagher

Finally, also noteworthy from Friday, the Senate unanimously reconfirmed Commissioner Aguilar for a second term with the Commission, and confirmed Commissioner Gallagher to replace the now departed Commissioner Casey.