SEC questioned Buffett's Berkshire on loss accounting

The US Securities and Exchange Commission questioned Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in Q2 on why it was not writing down large losses on shares in Kraft and US Bancorp.

Berkshire today publicly filed copies of a letter it sent to the SEC in May, insisting its accounting was accurate in regard to regulator questions about its accounting treatment, Reuters reports. In an April letter, the SEC asked Berkshire why it was not recording write-downs on shares with $1.86bn in unrealised losses, all of which had been in this position for at least a year. Given the duration of those losses, the SEC said they appeared to be more than temporary and as such should have been written down. In a detailed response, Berkshire CFO Marc Hamburg said most of the losse...