COSO Guidance On Monitoring Internal Control To Be Issued Feb. 4
Jan. 31, 2009

FEI Summary

The following information has been posted on the website of the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO):

“COSO is pleased to release the first volume of its monitoring guidance — the Introduction – [to COSO’s Guidance for Monitoring Internal Control Systems]. This business guidance more fully develops the monitoring component of the Internal Control - Integrated Framework to assist companies in ensuring the effectiveness of their financial, operational, and compliance-related internal controls. The entire four-volume set of guidance will be available on February 4, 2009.”

Check back to COSO’s website www.coso.org and FEI’s website www.financialexecutives.org on February 4 for more details and information about the full 4 volume set of COSO’s new Guidance on Monitoring Internal Control Systems.

FEI is one of the five sponsoring organizations of COSO. The other sponsoring organizations are the American Institute of CPAs, the American Accounting Association, the Institute of Internal Auditors, and the Institute of Management Accountants. FEI’s representative on the COSO board is FEI past president and senior advisor Michael P. Cangemi. Cangemi is the President of Cangemi Company, LLC.

The sponsoring organizations, together with other experts, served on a COSO project task force led by Trent Gazzaway, Manager Partner of Corporate Governance, Grant Thornton LLP. Grant Thornton was chosen by the COSO board to draft the monitoring guidance, under the oversight of the COSO project task force. The COSO board is chaired by Prof. Larry R. Rittenberg of the University of Wisconsin.  

FEI members from a cross section of companies, large and small, participated on an ad hoc Task Force on Monitoring which closely followed the development of the COSO guidance and submitted comment letters on the precursor Discussion Document and Exposure Draft of the guidance in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Rick Brounstein, CFO of NewCardio Inc. chaired FEI’s Task Force on Monitoring and served on the COSO project task force with Cangemi.

Cangemi, Brounstein and Gazzaway provided insights on the upcoming COSO guidance in this article which appeared in the January-February issue of Financial Executive Magazine.

COSO Seeks New Board Chair

In other COSO news, COSO is presently inviting applications for the position of Chairman of the COSO board. The current chair’s – Prof. Larry Rittenberg’s – term ended last year and he has agreed to stay on an interim basis during the search for a new chair.

At this time, we are not aware of a specific deadline for submitting applications, but we encourage interested candidates to apply soon. If we learn of a deadline we will update this summary. Further information, including a link to the COSO Board Chair Position Description, is available here.

Prepared Jan. 31, 2009 by Edith Orenstein, Director, Technical Policy Analysis, Financial Executives International (FEI). This summary does not represent FEI opinion unless specifically noted above.