Just how much is unknown, in part because the SEC hasn't finished issuing rules for such basics as what it will regard as sufficient internal financial controls.
While charisma is nice, CEOs sleep better at night if they know their financial statements and internal controls are being closely monitored by someone they implicitly trust and respect.
During the last four years, Deloitte has issued non-qualified audit opinions on the financial statements, in spite of ongoing material weaknesses in internal controls over their financial reporting.
But all the firms quickly saw that they could now charge a lot more for the audit itself given the new requirement for a separate opinion on internal controls over financial reporting and the amount of work some sloppy companies had to do to document, test, and confirm internal controls.
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How much time, and money, does Berkshire spend on corporate governance, in particular internal controls over financial reporting?
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As a result of this investigation, the Company is in the process of evaluating deficiencies in its internal controls over financial reporting.
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Companies with weak or non-existent internal controls over financial reporting are more susceptible to fraud and those frauds take longer to uncover.
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And many people have commented on the fact that it has come at a great cost to many public organizations, the fact that we need to assess and report on our internal controls of our financial reporting.
In addition to these efforts, we are in the process of documenting and testing our internal control over financial reporting in order to report on the effectiveness of our internal controls as of December 31, 2012, as required following our initial public offering in 2011.
The lack of effective internal controls could materially adversely affect our financial condition and ability to carry out our business plan.
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Based upon the actions taken and our testing and evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal controls, we have concluded the material weakness related to controls over the period-end financial reporting process no longer existed as of December 31, 2010.
It turns out that Con Edison wildly underestimated the scope and scale of financial losses suffered as the result of ludicrously inadequate internal accounting controls.
In addition, although we continually review and evaluate internal control systems to allow management to report on the sufficiency of our internal controls, we cannot assure you that we will not discover additional weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting.
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Internal auditors in the Welsh government inquiry found a "complete lack of oversight of the financial processes and controls" at the Swansea-based charity.
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