SEC’s ‘Swiss Army’ Accounting Law Tested by Cyber Breach Charges

Wall Street’s top regulator is putting a new spin on a decades-old rule designed to root out accounting fraud, leaving public companies and their attorneys wondering how far the rules extend.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. agreed last month to pay $2.1 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that the marketing and printing company violated disclosure and internal accounting control rules stemming from a 2021 cybersecurity breach.

The settlement, which comes amid heightened SEC focus on cybersecurity, represents a new—and expansive—take on the accounting control provisions. The regulator included a similar accounting charge in its high-profile suit against ...