Accounting

DaimlerChrysler said it would delay the announcement of its first-quarter results from April 26 to May 15 because of its changeover to international accounting standards. The postponement also means the German American automaker will be reporting results after it holds its annual shareholder meeting April 4, as rumors swirl about possible buyers for the Chrysler unit. DaimlerChrysler said it was switching from U.S.

The hole that Dell Inc. has been trying to dig itself out of got a little deeper Thursday. The personal computer maker said an internal investigation found accounting errors, "evidence of misconduct and deficiencies in the financial control environment." Dell said it wouldn't file its financial report for fiscal 2007 with the Securities and Exchange Commission until its probe was complete.

Tenet Healthcare Corp. agreed to pay a $10-million penalty to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it inflated its earnings by fraudulently billing the Medicare system, company and federal officials announced Monday. The accord closes the book on government actions against the nation's second-largest hospital operator related to its alleged Medicare fraud, which took place while it was based in Santa Barbara.

Complaints are rising that the Securities and Exchange Commission is muscling an accounting oversight board in a tilt toward business interests as the two agencies put together rules for public companies and auditors under a landmark anti-fraud law. In recent months, the SEC and the independent board that supervises the accounting industry have taken differing approaches toward the key part of the Sarbanes-Oxley law that arose from the 2002 malfeasance scandals at Enron Corp.

In an era of do-it-yourself retirement planning, workers are often hobbled by a lack of clear information on their investments and the fees they are charged to manage them. Those fees can eat away tens of thousands of dollars over time. Now, amid mounting evidence that murky accounting could undermine the financial security of retirees, federal regulators are seeking to toughen disclosure rules and devise a single standard for a wide variety of investments and retirement plans.

The Securities and Exchange Commission approved a framework Wednesday that would make it easier for companies and their auditors to comply with a landmark anti-fraud law. The vote by the five SEC commissioners was unanimous to support building more leeway into regulations, especially rules for auditors being written by the independent board that oversees the accounting industry.

The Justice Department has taken the unusual step of asking a bankruptcy judge to oust New Century Financial Corp.'s top managers and board members, and replace them with an appointed trustee. Directors and executives of the collapsed Irvine-based lender "failed to fulfill their fiduciary roles" by not ensuring that adequate accounting and financial controls were in place last year, according to a motion filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware by Joseph J. McMahon Jr.

Several members of the state panel that oversees funding for new schools said Wednesday that they wanted a full review to determine if Riverside County's Val Verde Unified School District misspent state funds. One member also expressed concern that the district's growing debt may put it in financial peril. "I think we have a train wreck coming financially," said State Allocation Board member Sen. Bob Margett (R-Arcadia).

Ernst & Young, one of the four biggest U.S. accounting firms, didn't catch errors that were probably relevant to companies' financial statements and failed to perform some required procedures in the audits it conducted, the federal regulator that oversees accounting firms said Wednesday. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's findings arose from its 2006 review of the firm's audits. The board was created under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law.

Activision Inc., publisher of the "Guitar Hero" and "Tony Hawk" series of video games, said Thursday that it would take a $67-million charge to account for 13 years' worth of improperly dated stock options. Analysts said the one-time charge should bring an end to concerns regarding executive stock options that have dogged the Santa Monica company since it launched a review of its compensation practices in July.