SEC completes taxonomies for XBRL

Investment News

The SEC is encouraging users and creators of investment company information to review the taxonomies (see the link below).

Any comments received by Nov. 24 might be included in the final taxonomies that are to be used in mutual fund filings, starting in 2009.

Visit the SEC website to read the rule proposal on mutual fund risk-return summaries. To review and comment on the taxonomies, visit XBRL US. Visit the story “Advisers may benefit from XBRL shift” for more on how the standards will ultimately help advisers.

If you have an opinion about taxonomies for XBRL, the time to express it would be before November 24.

The coming boom in criminal justice IT

Cash crunch could result in more corruption cases

“We’ve seen the high-water mark for [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] cases,” said Steven Tyrrell, chief of the Justice Department’s fraud section, speaking at a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference today. “[But] I believe we have yet to reach the crest of the wave.”

While the current credit crisis, and the lawsuits and prosecutions related to it, may produce a crop of additional FCPA cases, Mr. Tyrrell noted the recent boom of sovereign wealth funds is an area of particular interest to the Justice Department, though it has not yet garnered any definitive cases.

Desperate men will do desperate things.

Dept. of irresponsible allegations

Kurt Cagle throws around some wild accusations in his XBRL column.

While there are many culprits to blame in this (and its easy to blame anyone and everyone) one group of individuals that are getting especially heavy scrutiny are the banking regulators. It is very likely that some corruption exists here - suborning the regulatory mechanism is the very first step necessary in order to make the kind of deals that ultimately led to the financial collapse possible, and there is no doubt that more than a few regulators should probably be wearing prison orange jumpsuits right now.

And the evidence for that would be? Truly, before you start throwing that sort of allegation around you need to be able to document it chapter and verse. Did the regulators fail to uphold the law? Or was the law bent by their political masters? We will need a detailed analysis of the financial follies of the last decade in order to know who needs to be held accountable.

John Stewart on the blame game.

XBRL and investor relations

SEC to Junk Paper Filings, Require Interactive Online Reports

Within two years, the SEC will require all corporations and mutual funds to file using a technology called XBRL (extensible business reporting language) with the first wave beginning in December. This transition coincides with the agency's plan to replace its document-based system, for collecting, analyzing and retrieving data, known as EDGAR, with an Internet-based platform, IDEA, short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. ...

... To illustrate the system during a recent interview, Blaszkowsky sifted through volumes of financial information with a few clicks of his mouse, extracting data from several companies and creating a multicolor bar graph to compare the figures. Then he exported the data into an Excel spreadsheet. What took Blaszkowsky only seconds could have cost hours for a reader of current SEC filings.

"The centerpiece of our regulatory approach is giving investors the information they need to make wise decisions," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. "We have an opportunity to exponentially improve the way we perform that mission."

This will make it much easier to understand SEC filings and far easier for financial reporters and bloggers to report on it. Far more data will be publicly available in a form that is easily comprehended by the general public. Investor Relations practioners would be well advised to explain all this to management.

The international market for crisis communications

IRS asks Swiss for help probing $100B in tax evasion

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has asked the Swiss government to help in an expanding investigation of tax evasion by U.S. clients of banking giant UBS.

It's also a great day for XBRL.

SEC seeks input on taxonomies

Government Computer News

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Interactive Disclosure has asked for public comment on computer labels that will help companies make their financial disclosures more useful for investors and analysts.

If you build software for the financial service industry, even if your product does not interact with the SEC, you need to follow this process. Standards selection is vendor selection.