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John Carney, who runs the NetNet Blog at CNBC, wrote a column last week highlighting mine at Forbes.com on Bank of America and Warren Buffet. He picked my comments on PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bank of America’s auditor, to highlight.
Warren Buffett’s investment in Bank of America was big news yesterday and it still reverberating. Forget the “Buffett effect.” I am now enjoying the “front page of Forbes.com” effect. Within an hour of posting it yesterday the story had over 3,000 page views. It is now my number one highest traffic post for my column there.
Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to end financial scandals once and for all. Will Dodd-Frank succeed where it failed? My OpEd for Boston Review is online today, Monday, August 22, 2011.
I wrote this post about a month ago for Forbes.com and my column, “Accounting Watchdog” on a very important legal decision related to a real estate company, Centro, in Australia. Centro’s auditors were PwC.
This is an experiment using a tool called Storify that combines text and Tweets. I’m not sure yet how to get the formatting perfect, but I thought you might like to see the results.
I was recently interviewed for the radio show, Background Briefing, and the segment, “Auditing the Auditors,” that aired Sunday August 14th in Australia. The transcript and a podcast are available. I get the last word in response to a defense of the auditors by John Hempton re: the Chinese reverse merger scandals.
The PCAOB will hold an open meeting on Tuesday, August 16, to discuss a concept release soliciting public comments on ways that auditor independence, objectivity, and professional skepticism could be enhanced, including mandatory audit firm rotation. They are also soliciting comments on their Concept Release for changes to the auditor’s reporting model. I’ve written on these topics many, many times.
Making the non-obvious connections between the audit firms and their clients, between the clients and each other, and between the firms and each other is getting to be like shooting fish in a barrel.
As if Ernst & Young didn’t have enough to worry about now they’ve got a public airing of some dirty laundry by the PCAOB.
 Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty-five years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. Look for my column, "Accounting Watchdog" at Forbes.com and "Accountable" at American Banker. For more information, click "About" at the bottom of this page. Your firm can sponsor this specialized news site. For more information contact Francine McKenna, fmckenna@mckennapartners.com |
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