Morgan Stanley In Hot Water Over Accounting Mistakes

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According to a Bloomberg report today, the Securities and Exchange Commission has queried Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) about “multiple significant deficiencies” in its financial report after MS filed forms to correct multiple accounting errors involving loan cash flows, income taxes and derivatives contracts.

Trail of letters between SEC and Morgan Stanley

Letters exchanged between Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and the SEC released today were the sources of information for the story. The corrections involved restatements of financial figures in Morgan Stanley’s annual 10k report for 2012.

Explaining the issues in one of the letters, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) said that although its Sarbanes-Oxley program identified problems that impacted risk assessment and monitoring controls, the “overall design and operation of its control framework” was not in question.

One of the letters continued to say the deficiencies were caught in a “timely manner” and that none of the errors were material. Apparently the SEC is in agreement with Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) regarding the seriousness of the errors, as the SEC also said in one of its letters that it had completed its review as of October 17th.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) shares were trading down 45 cents at $30.98, or -1.43%, as of 1:25 PM EST today.

Also see: SEC’s New Counsel Tangled in Whistleblower Case.

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