Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

(a) During the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on the transfer date— (1) all intellectual property retained by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (Board) in support of its programs for registration, standard-setting, and inspection shall be shared with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission); and (2) pending enforcement and disciplinary actions of the Board shall be referred to the Commission or other regulators another Federal functional regulator (as defined in section 509 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6809)) in accordance with section 105 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7215). (b) Effective on the transfer date— (1) all unobligated fees collected under section 109(d) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 shall be transferred to the general fund of the Treasury, and the Commission may not collect fees under such section 109(d); (2) the duties and powers of the Board in effect as of the day before the transfer date, other than those described in section 107 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7217), shall be transferred to the Commission; (3) the Commission may not use funds to carry out section 107 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7217) for activities related to overseeing the Board; (4) the Board shall transfer all intellectual property described in subsection (a)(1) to the Commission; (5) existing processes and regulations of the Board, including existing Board auditing standards, shall continue in effect unless modified through rule making by the Commission; and (6) in connection with the duties and powers transferred under paragraph (2), any reference to the Board in any law, regulation, document, record, map, law implemented by a Federal functional regulator (as defined in section 509 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6809)), in any rule or guidance issued by a Federal functional regulator (as defined in section 509 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6809)), or in any records or other paper documents in the possession of a Federal functional regulator (as defined in section 509 of the United States Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 6809)), shall be deemed a reference to the Commission. (c) Any employee of the Board as of the date of enactment of this Act may— (1) be offered equivalent positions on the Commission staff, as determined by the Commission, and submit to the Commission’s standard employment policies; and (2) receive pay that is not higher than the highest paid employee of similarly situated employees of the Commission. (d) In this section, the term transfer date means the date established by the Commission for purposes of this section, except that such date may not be later than the date that is 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act.