Christopher Cox, the new chairman of the Securities and

Exchange Commission (SEC), fought against expensing employee stock options as a member of Congress. When Cox told a Senate committee considering his nomination as SEC chair that he supported options expensing, he squelched any remaining hopes that the new requirement might be overturned. Now companies are settling down to prepare for options expensing, which is turning out to involve a considerable amount of work, some of it coming in unexpected areas.

"The challenge for [companies] is to pull off integration of a new standard in an environment where they're still struggling with Sarbanes-Oxley," says William Dunn, a partner in the global human resources solutions practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Dunn notes that expensing employee stock options requires the concerted efforts of a great many different departments, including human resources, treasury, finance, tax, accounting and share plan administration. "It's hard to get all of the parties focused on a strategic path," he says.