Gee! No, GE!
By Francine • Sep 2nd, 2018A wrap-up of writing about GE since 2011.
Author Archive
New research: Accounting students are not generally psychopaths but some slip through
By Francine • Sep 2nd, 2018New academic research says accounting students are less likely to be psychopaths who will commit fraud but surprising admissions by some suggest a reason to be wary.
New Stories about the KPMG-PCAOB Scandal
By Francine • Aug 27th, 2018“Innovation demands risk-taking… which, in turn, entails redefining failure, stripping away its power to inhibit.” Chairman and CEO of KPMG Lynne Doughtie
Mick Mulvaney, the CFPB and a “thing”
By Francine • Apr 29th, 2018Warning: Coarse language, because we may get a lot of snow in Chicago but we’re no snowflakes. Last week I went to an American Bankers Association Conference for bank government relations executives. I wrote a story about some things that Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (and also a cabinet member […]
Another Update on the Case of FDIC v PricewaterhouseCoopers re: Colonial Bank
By Francine • Apr 8th, 2018On February 28 the US Justice Department fined Deloitte & Touche LLP $149.5 million for alleged fraud against the government related to its role as the independent outside auditor of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. Also: The damages phase of the FDIC v. PwC case regarding Colonial Bank is set to begin in Washington DC on March 20.
McKenna at The Frunchroom
By Francine • Oct 2nd, 2017She’s a native South Sider, and she definitely traveled the longest distance to be at the show at Beverly Arts Center. Guess who?
Revenue Recognition is Coming: Part 2
By Francine • Sep 7th, 2017I’ve been coaching my colleagues on how to spot updates and interesting anecdotes about revenue recognition during the second quarter earnings season. Now we are catching up on the Qs filed and comparing disclosures after concentrating on what was said in earnings releases and calls.
Revenue Recognition is Coming: Following the Progress at MarketWatch
By Francine • Sep 6th, 2017Once I returned from my Stigler Center fellowship I got to work catching up on the new standard, talking to experts everywhere and working with Audit Analytics to come up with the data to support stories–by my and my colleagues–about companies and their response to the new standard. My goal was to pick some of the obscure topics that were unique or focused on a specific industry.
Update: McKenna at the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center
By Francine • Aug 5th, 2017I’ve updated the post to point to some recent news about PwC and banks that failed in Ukraine and Spain… I returned to Washington D.C. and my job as a journalist at MarketWatch in late June, after almost three months as a Journalist in Residence at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. My fellowship deliverable, in exchange for the opportunity to study with the researchers, was three posts for the Center’s Pro-Market blog on the state of the audit industry.
At the Stigler Center Pro-Market Blog: Big 4 Lobbies Against SOx
By Francine • May 30th, 2017The last time anyone attempted to “modernize” auditor independence rules it was the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 2000, before the Enron failure and Arthur Andersen’s demise, as a result of the growing concern that firms increasing focus on consulting was distracting them for their core purpose, auditing. The Big Four firms are now opportunistically lobbying to go back in time, before Enron, when the industry was self-regulated and mostly left alone, able to have as many conflicts of interest as their powerful public clients would allow.
Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) is the Transparency Reporter at MarketWatch.com, a Dow Jones publication, where her work is also featured frequently in the Wall Street Journal. McKenna had 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 before becoming a journalist. Look for her prior columns, 