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NEW AGENCY AUDITS FOREIGN FIRMS IN US

WASHINGTON, DC - A new US government agency that oversees corporate auditing has registered 164 foreign firms to work in the US and expects as many as 400 non-US firms eventually to register

The new agency is the the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which oversees the auditors of public companies to ensure that corporate financial statements are subject to rigorous independent scrutiny and that the auditor-client relationship is free from conflicts of interest.

Creation of the PCAOB was one of the changes instituted by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-204) - the sweeping corporate reform law passed by Congress after a wave of US financial scandals.

Sarbanes-Oxley specifies that foreign firms are subject to PCAOB rules "to the same extent as a public accounting firm that is organized and operated under the laws of the United States."

The board "has sought to create a framework that depends as much as possible on cooperation among regulators. That effort has succeeded in fostering an international dialogue on auditing regulations and helped lead to a 'landmark' European proposal for independent auditing oversight in Europe," said an agency spokesman.

US regulators also have held "fruitful" discussions with their counterparts in Canada, France, Switzerland, Germany, Australia and Japan, he said, adding "we hope to be able to rely to a great extent on the inspection work of other independent regulators."

ZENTROPY PARTNERS WINS WEB PAGE AWARDS

LOS ANGELES - Zentropy Partners has been awarded 5 Creative Excellence Awards and 5 Certificates of Creative Achievement by the International Web Page Awards for website design.

The awards make the global Internet professional services company the most awarded interactive agency in the world at this recent year's IWPA festival.

The five Zentropy-designed sites honored for "Creative Excellence" were: Radisson Seven Seas Cruises, Unilever's Popsicle and Magnum Seven Deadly Sins sites, Opel's Astra, and the Microsoft Partners site. These sites are now eligible to compete in the IWPA "Best of Category" and "Best of Festival" awards to be announced by the IWPA on June 30th.

Zentropy also received five IWPA "Certificates of Achievement" for its work on Citationshares, Purina Proplan, Jacuzzi Whirlpool Bath, and several Nikon "inside theography" series sites.

The International Web Page Awards is the largest international forum of website designers on the Internet. The competition received more than 700 entries from 21 countries this year.

Recently named one of the five best award competitions on the Internet by WIRED magazine, The International Web Page Awards recognize creativity in interactive design among graphic artists, website designers, advertising agencies and corporations who wish to spotlight their creativity in interactive design.

Zentropy Partners' global clients include GM, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nestle and Unilever, among others.

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