The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation and its International Sustainability Standards Board released a new sustainability guide Tuesday.

The guide can help companies identify and disclose material information about sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could reasonably be expected to affect their cash flows, their access to finance or cost of capital over the short, medium or long term.

Investors and global capital markets are increasingly requesting such information to inform investment decision making. The guide focuses on helping companies understand how the concept of sustainability-related risks and opportunities is described in IFRS S1, the ISSB’s sustainability disclosure standard, including how these can come from a company’s dependencies and impacts. Those dependencies and impacts on resources and relationships can lead to sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could reasonably be expected to affect its prospects.

The guide discusses how companies applying ISSB standards can benefit from the process they might already follow in making materiality judgments when preparing financial statements, particularly when applying IFRS accounting standards. The IFRS Foundation oversees both the ISSB and the International Accounting Standards Board.

The guide describes the process a company can follow which is closely aligned with the four-step process illustrated in the IASB’s IFRS Practice Statement 2: Making Materiality Judgments. As a result, although the ISSB standards can be used with any generally accepted accounting principles, those companies already applying IFRS accounting standards — in over 140 jurisdictions worldwide — as well as those such as in the U.S. where there is strong alignment with a focus on providing material information to investors, will be particularly well prepared to apply the concept of materiality using ISSB standards.

The guide also discusses some of the considerations a company might make to drive connectivity between sustainability-related financial disclosures and a company’s financial statements. For those looking to meet the information needs of a wider set of stakeholders, it provides considerations for those applying ISSB standards alongside European Sustainability Reporting Standards or Global Reporting Initiative standards.

Super Micro Computer Inc. shares jumped as much as 27% after the company hired a new auditor and filed a plan to come into compliance with Nasdaq listing requirements.

The server maker said it submitted a plan to the Nasdaq exchange for filing its 10-K financial disclosure report delayed in August. The company also announced that it appointed BDO USA as its independent auditor, effective immediately. 

“In its compliance plan to Nasdaq, the company indicated that it believes that it will be able to complete its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2024, and its quarterly report on 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024, and become current with its periodic reports within the discretionary period available to the Nasdaq staff to grant,” Super Micro said Monday in a statement. 

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

If Super Micro’s plan is accepted by the exchange, its new deadline for the document will likely be pushed to February. It will be able to stay listed on the Nasdaq until a final decision about its compliance is made. If a plan isn’t approved, the company can appeal the decision.

Super Micro’s previous auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, resigned in October, citing concerns over the company’s transparency and governance. Ernst & Young is one of the Big Four accounting firms, the auditors that vet the books of the world’s largest companies. BDO USA is the sixth-largest auditor by revenue, according to Inside Public Accounting. The firm has only one other S&P 500 company as a client, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Finding an auditor is a “big step for them,” even if it isn’t one of the Big Four firms, Matt Bryson, an analyst at Wedbush, said in an interview. “This is a positive step in terms of putting a plan forth in front of Nasdaq, and, at least from their perspective, hopefully being able to file their financials and put these problems to bed.” 

Having a new auditor and a plan to regain compliance with Nasdaq’s listing rules is the latest update in a tumultuous few months for Super Micro, which had gained favor with investors earlier this year as a potential beneficiary of the demand for artificial intelligence services. The San Jose, California-based company delayed filing its annual 10-K following a damaging report from short seller Hindenburg Research, and last week said it would be late with quarterly reports. 

Super Micro is also facing a U.S. Department of Justice probe. The shares had tumbled more than 80% from a peak in March through Monday’s close.

The company has gone through a delisting and relisting process before. In 2019, the shares were taken off the Nasdaq exchange after Super Micro failed to meet deadlines to file a 10-K and several quarterly reports. The company received approval to rejoin the exchange in 2020, and in the same year paid a $17.5 million penalty to resolve an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Super Micro didn’t admit to or deny the regulator’s allegations as part of its settlement. 

Some stock bulls are reiterating their investment case for the one-time Wall Street AI darling. 

“We take the view that regardless of its regulatory woes (now receding in the rear-view mirror), SMCI maintains its leadership in the massive, scalable AI data center market for liquid-cooled server racks,” Lynx Equity Strategy analyst KC Rajkumar said. 

“SMCI has a leadership position in the rapidly expanding liquid-cooled GPU server data center market, a position it is unlikely to give up any time soon,” Rajkumar said.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has launched a social media campaign to commemorate its 25th anniversary, even as the Senate Finance Committee holds hearings on a replacement for the agency’s long-time inspector general, who died earlier this year.

TIGTA provides independent oversight of the IRS and was created by Congress as part of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. TIGTA has issued more than 3,000 reports — often detailing inefficient practices at the IRS — which it claims have produced $383 billion in benefits from improvements in federal tax operations.

The agency has also referred nearly 32,000 cases of IRS employee misconduct for action and 5,400 cases for criminal prosecution.

Some of this work occurred during economic crises when the IRS was tasked with distributing financial relief to millions of taxpayers. For example, TIGTA assessed IRS implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and multiple pandemic relief packages.

“Having spent many years in the federal government, I value TIGTA’s important role in many facets of tax administration oversight,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a statement. “TIGTA helps ensure our agency is accountable for the work we do.”

TIGTA’s social media campaign will be on LinkedIn and X and feature accomplishments, perspectives, trivia and other facts about TIGTA.

Since its creation, the agency has been led by two presidentially appointed inspectors general. The Senate is now considering the nomination of David Samuel Johnson, of Virginia, who would succeed Inspector General J. Russell George. The latter, appointed 20 years ago, died in January.