Archive for the ‘Audit Firm Management’ Category

Zombies Among Us: The Mainstream Media and Financial Journalism

By Francine • Oct 31st, 2009

Whatever I do now, it’s in service to my desire to write. If I work for pay, whether as a consultant or a paid speaker, the objective is to earn enough to be able to write. For someone who wants to be a freelance writer, potentially paid by the media organizations who I’m accusing of not stepping up to cover the audit firms in a critical manner, I’ve sure slammed those same publications often enough.

It’s a long list.

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Auditing Standard 5: How Now, Brown Cow?

By Francine • Oct 3rd, 2009

On 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.

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@Going Concern “Can I Have Your Autograph?”

By Francine • Sep 30th, 2009

My new post is up @Going Concern.

“The PCAOB approved Auditing Standard No. 7, Engagement Quality Review on July 28, 2009. They also issued a Concept Release on requiring the engagement partner to sign the audit report.  The comment period closed September 11th and boy oh boy were there a lot of comments. The firms came [...]

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McKenna On Auditor Litigation: Securities Docket’s Mid-Year Update and Schein v. EY

By Francine • Jul 11th, 2009

Last 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 [...]

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BDO International – Yellow Card or Red Flag?

By Francine • May 20th, 2009

If 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.

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What I’d Do: Part 2 – First We Focus On The Client

By Francine • Apr 13th, 2009

What can the audit firms do to improve scrutiny of public companies – especially the ones governments have invested so much taxpayer money in – now when we need it the most? Can it be done? I think so. Starting at the top, at a strategic level, I recommend first that firms make significant changes by refocusing on their true client – the shareholders and investors of the public companies they audit.

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Hey Big 4! If I Were You, Here’s What I’d Do (Instead…)

By Francine • Apr 8th, 2009

I asked myself, “fm, what would you do if one of them asked you to step up and offer solutions?” If anyone asked me to help find a way to get through this period,

-Without reductions in force,
-Without betraying the trust of otherwise very loyal employees,
-Without losing the confidence of key clients,
-Without endangering quality and integrity in the work they’ve been enfranchised to do under the exclusive licensing of various federal governments and public/private bodies such as exchanges,
-Without risking new lawsuits for negligence and complicity on fraud and malfeasance, and
-Without completely abdicating responsibility to their true client – the shareholders and investors in the public companies they audit,

I would start at the top.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers Case Is A Game Changer

By Francine • Mar 19th, 2009

No, I’m not talking about the BDO International case or the Deloitte Parmalat case, although those two are game changers too. In those cases, the audit firms may lose their ability to hide behind the “global network” model as a way to avoid liabilty for what happens to one of their satellites…What I’m talking about is a case that has been lightly publicized, except in its own world and in the local California environment. That case is Campbell v. PricewaterhouseCoopers. …the pattern and precedent, both legal and moral, that will be set will have a ripple effect throughout the accounting industry – all the firms, everywhere in the US.

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The Auditors’ Chinese Wall – Is SOx Still A Keystone?

By Francine • Feb 20th, 2009

When the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in the summer of 2002, largely as a rushed reaction to Enron, it did get a few key things right. We can’t allow time, or fuzzy academics, to let us forget the good reasons for having made them.

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Hey Social Media! The Big 4 Is Just Not That Into You…

By Francine • Jan 23rd, 2009

Relationships are tough. The ones that require a conversation even tougher. Embracing the concepts of social media, learning how to use the tools available, can be daunting.

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