SEC Announces Panelists and Agenda for Mark-to-Market Accounting Roundtable

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2008-276

Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2008 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the expected panelists for its November 21 roundtable concerning mark-to-market accounting.

The roundtable will be held at the SEC's Washington, D.C., headquarters and will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET with opening remarks from SEC Chairman Christopher Cox.  The roundtable will have one panel discussion focused on:

• Usefulness of mark-to-market accounting to investors
• The sufficiency of information and the ability to improve the reliability regarding the valuation of assets recognized at fair value that do not currently trade in an active market
• Challenges encountered and best practice used by preparers of financial statements related to estimating fair value during the current market conditions
• Whether there are aspects of the current fair value measurement accounting standards that are not sufficiently clear, and if so, what are the areas that could be improved and how
• Whether there needs to be more education related to fair value measurements
• Challenges that auditors have faced and best practice employed in providing assurance regarding fair value accounting
• Ways to increase transparency and consistency in the application of impairment models for investments not held for trading purposes

James Gilleran, former Director, Office of Thrift Supervision
Jay Hanson, McGladrey & Pullen, LLP
Richard Jones, Dechert LLP
Wayne Landsman, University of North Carolina
David Larsen, Duff and Phelps LLC
Dane Mott, JP Morgan Chase
Donald Nicolaisen, former Chief Accountant of the SEC
Samuel Ranzilla, KPMG LLP
David Runkle, Trilogy Global Advisors
Kevin Spataro, The Allstate Corporation
Mark Thresher, Nationwide Financial
Bob Traficanti, Citigroup

In addition, the following individuals are scheduled to participate in the panel discussion as observers:

Daniel Goelzer, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
Charles Holm, Federal Reserve Board
Kristen Jaconi, U.S. Department of the Treasury
Thomas Jones, International Accounting Standards Board
Thomas Linsmeier, Financial Accounting Standards Board

The roundtable is expected to conclude at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET.

The roundtable will be open to the public with seating on a first-come, first-serve basis. Doors will open at 9:00 a.m. ET. Visitors will be subject to security checks.

Live audio and video webcasts as well as materials related to the roundtable are available on the SEC Web site.

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