In late September of this year, the PCAOB released a report on the first-year implementation of AS 5. While this report noted that improvements remain to be made, in general auditors were reported to have made progress in exercising judgment as to which areas to focus on, minimizing unnecessary procedures and testing and relying on the work of others.
In early October of this year, the SEC's Office of Economic Analysis issued a study of SOX 404 following the 2007 reforms. For companies with a public float of less than $75 million that complied with both Section 404(a) and (b) (even though they were not required to comply with Section 404), the SEC survey results found that mean compliance costs decreased from just over $769,000 before the reforms to just over $690,000 after the reforms. Median compliance costs for the same companies decreased from just over $579,000 before the reforms to approximately $439,000 after the reforms.
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