SEC Seeks Comment On Recommendations In CiFIR (Pozen Committee) Report
February 22, 2008
FEI Summary

On Feb. 19, 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) posted a Request for Comments on the "Progress Report of the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting" (CiFIR, also called the Pozen Committee for committee chair Robert Pozen.) UPDATE: The request for comment was published in the Federal Register on February 28, and the 30 day comment period will end on March 31. CiFIR’s progress report is attached to the Request for Comments.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox issued a statement on February 14, calling CiFIR’s progress report “an important step toward making financial information more useful for investors and reducing unnecessary complexity.”  He added, “I thank the committee members for their diligent work to date and look forward to additional proposals and recommendations as the committee continues its important work over the next few months.”

Cox also stated, “I have asked the SEC's professional staff to analyze the report and its proposals, and to provide recommendations to the commission for possible consideration later this year.”

Additional information is available in FEI’s summary of CIFiR’s 12 Proposals and FEI’s summary of CIFiR’s proposed professional judgment framework. (Note: FEI’s summaries were prepared based on CIFiR’s Feb. 11 draft progress report, minor wording changes were made to the final progress report.) Other summaries are linked below.

Separately, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB’s) Standing Advisory Group (SAG) is scheduled to discuss CIFiR’s proposed professional judgment framework at its Feb. 27 meeting

Other summaries from:

KPMG

Updated Feb. 28, 2008 by Edith Orenstein, Director, Technical Policy Analysis, Financial Executives International (FEI). This summary does not represent FEI opinion unless specifically noted above.