But more crucial than any specific changes in financial reporting procedures, he said, is the message that employees should comply with the spirit, not just the letter, of accounting standards and securities laws.
Mr. Dell, the founder and chairman of the company, the world's largest computer maker, spoke one day after the company said that the Justice Department had joined an investigation of its financial reporting procedures.
But the committee's critics note that nearly 450 companies that had reported significant problems with their financial controls by last year would be totally or partly exempt from the requirement to review financial reporting procedures.
The most controversial recommendation by the advisory committee would exempt four out of five public companies from the provision that requires companies to review their financial reporting procedures and fix any problems that could lead to mistakes or fraud.
Management also admitted that in preparing its 2011 year-end financial reports it had discovered a material weakness in its financial reporting process and said it is beefing up its internal accounting procedures and staff.
"Congress needs to revisit its entire financial disclosure-reporting procedure to ensure that filings provide accurate, understandable and complete information about lawmakers' wealth".
The administrative formalities and the procedure for financial reporting are understandably strict in collaborative research projects.
This section calls for an annual evaluation of internal controls and procedures for financial reporting.
This makes managers responsible for maintaining an "adequate internal control structure and procedures for financial reporting"; and demands that companies' auditors "attest" to the management's assessment of these controls and disclose any "material weaknesses".
Firms had to establish independent audit committees, company loans to executives were banned, top executives had to certify accounts and whistleblowers were given more job protection if they reported any suspicions of fraud.In the act's now notorious section 404, managers were made responsible for maintaining an "adequate internal-control structure and procedures for financial reporting".
Activision declined to state the cause of his firing, saying only that it was "unrelated to the Company's financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures," in a regulatory filing.
