Given the stepped up information-sharing going on these days among regulators in other areas, it shouldn't be surprising that lawmakers want to allow the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to share confidential information with regulators of foreign firms.

H. R. 3346, introduced in the House by Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and co-sponsored by Capital Markets Sub-committee Chairman Paul Kanjorski, would amend the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to permit the sharing of confidential supervisory information with foreign auditor oversight bodies.

The bill would amend SOX to allow the Board, when it deems it necessary to accomplish the purposes of SOX or to protect investors, to share confidential information obtained in connection with inspections and investigations with foreign audit oversight authorities, if they provide the appropriate assurances of confidentiality.

According to the text of the legislation, the term "foreign auditor oversight authority" would mean any "governmental body or other entity empowered by a foreign government to conduct inspections of public accounting firms or otherwise to administer or enforce laws related to the regulation of public accounting firms."