New at Forbes: My Comments On The Latest Sanctions Against Ernst & Young
By Francine • Aug 3rd, 2011As if Ernst & Young didn’t have enough to worry about now they’ve got a public airing of some dirty laundry by the PCAOB.
Archive for the ‘Liability Caps’ Category
Ernst & Young Lehman Litigation: It’s No Victory If You’re Going To Trial
By Francine • Jul 29th, 2011It wasn’t even a verdict. Just a decision by New York Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan in one of the Lehman failure cases Ernst & Young is fighting. A decision to allow substantially all of the allegations against Lehman executives and at least one of the allegations against Ernst & Young to move forward to discovery and trial. That is, if there’s not a settlement first.
Going In Circles: A Few Remarks On Audit Reform
By Francine • Jul 14th, 2011Don’t get me wrong.
I’m thrilled that there’s a lot of traffic in my lane. What I mean is, it’s good for everyone that we’re talking about these issues and that someone other than me and a few other broken records are playing these tunes.
@Forbes “Auditors Abandon Investors On Liability Limits”
By Francine • Mar 13th, 2011Tammy Whitehouse over at Compliance Week does a thorough job on the largest audit firms and their fear of catastophic litigation. Yes, they’re admitting it – Tammy says they’re pleading with legislators – and fighting any legislative urges to open more avenues for lawyers and their clients to sue them.
The Dodd-Frank Act gave the Securities and [...]
Auditing Standard 5: How Now, Brown Cow?
By Francine • Oct 3rd, 2009On September 24, 2009 the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued a report on the first year of implementation of Auditing Standard No. 5. There’s something negative to say about each of the components reviewed.
McKenna On Auditor Litigation: Securities Docket’s Mid-Year Update and Schein v. EY
By Francine • Jul 11th, 2009Last Thursday I participated in the “2009 Mid-Year Review – Securities Litigation and Enforcement” sponsored by Securities Docket. The webcast is part of BrightTalk’s Securities Litigation Summit, and follows-up and provides an update to the popular “2008 Year in Review” we presented in January 2009.
I joined several of the leading bloggers in the securities litigation [...]
BDO International – Yellow Card or Red Flag?
By Francine • May 20th, 2009If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know that I pretty much stick to discussing the largest 4 audit/accounting firms. This is for practical reasons – keeping my sanity in dealing with so much information – and to be realistic. Put the three next tier firms in the US together and they don’t equal either the critical mass in terms of experience and infrastructure nor the client/revenue base of any one of the Big 4. They will never, either individually or collectively, be able to step up and absorb the detritus from another Big 4 firm failure, either in the US or out.
That doesn’t mean the next tier don’t serve the clients they have well. Mostly. Just means that the next tier are not ready to play in the same pitch as Ronaldo.
A Question Of Value – Why So Much Ado?
By Francine • Oct 21st, 2008What we have we prize not to the worthWhiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,Why, then we rack the value, then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhiles it was ours.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Friar Francis, in Much Ado About Nothing, act 4, sc. 1, l. 218-22. We do [...]
Deloitte and Litigation – Ya Win Some, Ya Lose Some
By Francine • Jun 20th, 2008Deloitte is in the news for some significant litigation issues.
First the winner.
This ruling, I think, will have a big impact on the auditor subprime cases to come. Many of these cases, when it comes to the auditors liability, will be based on whether auditors should have been more diligent, thorough, and hard on banks and [...]
Approved! All Together Now – EY To Be One Firm (Except US, Of Course)
By Francine • Jun 3rd, 2008Ernst & Young Completes Groundbreaking Globalization Move
EY Partners Overwhelmingly Approve the Creation of EMEIA
LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ernst & Young today announces that its partners across Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa have overwhelmingly approved the proposed integration of its country practices into a single EMEIA Area.
The new Area will be a US$11 billion [...]
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, 