North America: Accounting and Audit

Although e-commerce has been around for about a dozen years, in many ways it really only came into its own in 2006. If you consider that online sales still account for only one per cent of all retail purchases, you might wonder whether e-commerce has actually progressed all that much.

Identity theft is the number one consumer crime in America, and still growing rapidly. In 2004, almost one in twelve households were victimized by some form of identity theft, and surveys indicate that approximately one fifth of Americans have been victims at one time or another. The total amount of identity fraud in 2004 reached a staggering $200 for every man, woman, and child in the US. Estimates of actual individual losses vary widely, but figures of approximately $500 average out-of-pocket

Assume a situation in which Party One in foreign country A asks his local bank to make a payment to the local bank of Party Two in foreign country B. Assume further that this transaction has absolutely nothing to do with the United States.

Nonprofit organizations that sponsor retirement plans such as 401(k) and 403(b) plans are subject to two separate, but related, newly finalized U.S. Department of Labor regulations regarding disclosure of retirement plan fees that will become effective soon: (1) vendor-to-plan disclosure, and (2) plan-to-participant disclosure.

In the nearly seven years since the United States Bankruptcy Code was amended to include a new Chapter 15 to address cross-border insolvencies.

The IRS has finalized regulations (T.D. 9582) regarding whether the order in which a trust or estate distributes income to charity under its governing instrument will be respected for federal income tax purposes.

Many diverse industries are populated by businesses that operate “two-sided platforms.” These businesses serve distinct groups of customers who need each other in some way, and the core business of the two-sided platform is to provide a common (real or virtual) meeting place and to facilitate interactions between members of the two distinct customer groups.

Online advertising has grown rapidly in the last decade. It now accounts for almost a seventh of all advertising spending and contributes to the preponderance of revenues for most websites. It is projected to increase sharply as more consumers spend time online on their personal computers and as additional devices such as mobile phones and televisions are connected to the web.

Few states have deregulated basic telephone service. The underlying rationale seems to be the concern that subsets of the population—e.g., people subscribing only to plain old telephone service (POTS), or those in more rural areas—have no real competitive options and thus would face significantly higher rates.

Multiple channel strategies are a way of life for manufacturers today.

In the first article in this series, NERA Economic Consulting provided a primer on "The Subprime Meltdown." That article described the players and their roles in the subprime securitization process. This article focuses on mortgage originators and the accounting-related allegations made against them in recent subprime lawsuits.

This article first appeared in the newly released book from NERA Economic Consulting,' The Line in the Sand: The Shifting Boundary Between Markets and Regulation in Network Industries.' With a foreword by Alfred E Kahn.