Still, Mr. Meltzer said, boards may be more likely to shoot down a merger proposal or at least require management to negotiate more ways out of a deal in case accounting irregularities surface.
Moore said the department is open to more examination of the program and would make changes if irregularities surface.
Among the assets Fonix seeks is Dragon Systems, a speech technology company based in Newton, Mass., that was acquired by Lernout in 2000, a few months before accounting irregularities surfaced at Lernout, eventually leading to the company's collapse.
Mr. Duerden came to the company last March when it acquired Dictaphone, and was named chief executive in August when accounting irregularities surfaced and Gaston Bastiaens resigned the post.
When the first accusations of counting irregularities surfaced just before midnight on Sunday, Mr. Toledo led tens of thousands of protesters on a march to the presidential palace, where they were driven back by policemen using tear gas.
Shortly after Kmart filed for bankruptcy, charges of accounting irregularities surfaced at the company, the economy worsened and Martha Stewart, the personality behind one of Kmart's best-selling product lines, came under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission for her stock trades.
Earlier this year, the accounting firm KPMG, brought in to do an audit as irregularities surfaced, reported that some of the country's most powerful men, including some government officials, had borrowed and failed to repay thousands of dollars from one of the banks.
The ad agency holding company (notably Deutsch, McCann-Erickson and Foote Cone & Belding) has reeled since accounting irregularities surfaced in 2002.
The symmetry of this scheme is distorted by the irregularities of surface and drainage or the effects of radial highways and railroads.
