I've just noticed that last week the SEC announced a follow-up to its roundtable discussion of Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 for May 10.

SEC Chairman Chris Cox must be feeling confident — the only significant outcome of the roundtable last April that I could discern was the departure of his predecessor, William Donaldson, six weeks later (preceded by enforcement director Stephen Cutler and followed, with varying speed and degrees of connection, by much of the SEC's senior staff as well as PCAOB chairman William McDonough).

According to the press release, Cox says that "Last spring's informative roundtable resulted in valuable guidance." Presumably, that valuable guidance included the hint that simply telling auditors to use more personal judgment isn't going to mollify the business community. So far, the SEC comment section on this is empty, but it will be interesting to see what tone the entries take. Last year, constructive, point-by-point critiques of 404 requirements (like this one from Computer Sciences CFO Leon Level) were largely drowned out by shrill complaints about auditor behavior. That left the participants at least partly to blame for the unsatisfactory response from Donaldson and company, who promptly oiled the squeakiest wheel.

Last year, I blogged the roundtable in real time; I'll try to repeat that exercise this May.