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News this week

• Leadership change — Enforcement Director named (Aug 21)
  Judge Margaret “Meg” Ryan was appointed Director of the Division of Enforcement (effective Sept 2). Leadership shifts at Enforcement often foreshadow changes in priorities and charging posture.

• Alleged “fake revenue” scheme tied to ESG/SPAC narrative (Aug 21)
  The SEC charged Joseph Neal Sanberg (Aspiration co-founder) with misleading investors via sham reforestation revenue while raising $300+ million; DOJ announced parallel criminal charges. This is a high-dollar fraud case squarely targeting revenue recognition around “green” offerings, relevant for disclosure controls and audit committees.

• EDGAR-adjacent insider trading case (filed Aug 18; LR dated Aug 21)
  The SEC charged two Brooklyn men who worked at a filings vendor with trading off material nonpublic information gleaned from upcoming SEC filings, netting ~$2 million; DOJ brought a parallel action. This highlights vendor risk and the sensitivity of pre-filing workflows (M&A, earnings, 13Ds, etc.).

• U.S. Bank consent order terminated (Aug 21) - The Bureau ended its 2022 sham-accounts consent order against U.S. Bank, noting the bank paid the $37.5M penalty, issued redress, and implemented required conduct provisions; the order is now marked expired/terminated.

• Cybersecurity alert - critical Cisco FMC vulnerability (Aug 20)
  FINRA warned firms about CVE-2025-20265 in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center that could allow remote code execution with admin privileges; FINRA recommends following Cisco’s guidance and reporting incidents to regulators and law enforcement. This has immediate operational-risk implications for broker-dealers using the affected stack.

• Licensing: business combination approved (Aug 19) – OCC approved a business combination application involving Community Bank, N.A. and Santander Bank, N.A. (Application No. 2025-COMBINATION-341938), alongside other weekly licensing actions (branch openings/closings, change in control). Material for market footprint and local competition.

A thought from our Author Norm Osumi 

GenAI’s Real Impact on the CFO Function

In this week’s edition of Zero Material Weaknesses, from the author, we spotlight five actionable insights from a future Reporting Norms podcast episode featuring Wayne Robinson. With deep transformation experience at organizations like Salesforce, Cisco, and Visa, Wayne outlines exactly how finance leaders can start and scale AI within their teams. Here are the highlights:

GenAI Enables Finance to Finally Go Strategic

For over a decade, finance professionals have aspired to step beyond transactional work into strategic roles. Generative AI is now making that shift possible. By offloading time-consuming tasks like variance analysis and manual reporting, finance teams are gaining back hours if not days to focus on insights, scenario modeling, and business partnering. McKinsey reports that 71% of CFOs using AI see measurable productivity gains.

FP&A Is the Natural Starting Point

Wayne points to variance analysis within FP&A as a prime area for AI acceleration. Traditional workflows often require days of spreadsheet reviews. Now, simple prompts like “compare SG&A to budget and flag anything >10%” can generate dashboards and forecasts in hours. The result is faster, more consistent analysis that shifts focus to high-value forecasting and business advising.

SEC Reporting Is Ripe for Quality Gains

GenAI can now assist with drafting MD&A, validating XBRL tags, and flagging inconsistencies before filings go out. The benefit? Fewer SEC comment letters, cleaner audits, and less risk during close. Instead of replacing preparers, AI becomes a real-time QC reviewer. PWC and Deloitte both cite AI's potential to cut review time in half.

Operational Accounting Gets Smarter and Leaner

From invoice OCR to PO matching, AI is transforming AP/AR workflows. For high-volume vendors, AI can recognize invoice layouts after one scan and auto-update systems like NetSuite or SAP. The result is a 60–70% reduction in cycle time and a significant drop in duplicates or fraud. As Wayne notes, CFOs love this level of predictability in cashflow management.

Revenue Recognition and Contract Review Go Real-Time

Reviewing sales contracts for ASC 606 implications used to take days. Now, with tools like ChatGPT or Claude wrapped in the right enterprise policies teams can flag unusual payment terms, scan for performance obligations, and build audit trails in minutes. For deal desk, revenue accounting, and even legal, this lowers staffing needs and reduces restatement risk.

A smart GenAI strategy starts small but must be built with a roadmap, executive sponsorship, and clear ROI metrics. Whether you are automating journal entries or revamping your UAT process, GenAI is no longer a future concept. It’s here, and it’s elevating finance teams from number crunchers to strategic advisors.

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Weekly Podcasts

We want to keep you engaged with meaningful topics, so we create weekly podcasts and host periodic webinars.

Imagine buying a fractional share of Tesla on a blockchain, instantly, no matter where you are in the world. In our latest episode of Reporting Norms, we dive into how tokenized real-world assets, stocks, bonds, even real estate - are shaking up global trading and blurring regulatory lines. Curious how rules adapt when finance goes borderless?

Tune in to the full episode for a deep dive into the future of trading!

Here’s the audio version of the same:

To watch more podcasts, visit and follow us on ReportingNorms.ai.

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