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With Democrats like Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, who needs the Republicans? When special interests pursue self-interested legislation or seek to block legislation that affects their interests Maloney is ready to wave the jobs and economic growth flag for her campaign contributors rather than looking out for investors.
I expect the auditors to earn their fees by looking out for investors. But maybe that’s just pie in the sky.
There are still many unanswered questions about how and why the financial crisis frauds occurred. New frauds, such as the Chinese reverse merger frauds, took advantage of a public listing loophole that the SEC and auditors missed. All these investor losses occurred under the supposedly watchful eyes of auditors, who are paid dearly to protect shareholders but in many cases are either complicit, incompetent, or both.
re: The Auditors has seen a confidential, internal Deloitte training document, prepared this past summer, that reveals the firm expects the worst when the inspection reports for their 2009, 2010, and 2011 audits are published by the PCAOB. Is Deloitte truly committed to a sea change in tone as well as technique? I’m not convinced.
Almost everyone wondering where the missing MF Global customer assets have gone thinks they will show up eventually. I believe the assets are long gone.
My American Banker column on Tuesday focused on the risks to banks, their audit committees, and shareholders of an auditor who blows off its regulator. Deloitte’s ongoing conflict with the PCAOB poses the risk of undue scrutiny by other regulators and unwanted publicity to all its clients.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and Dodd-Frank’s clawback provision both require a restatement. The restatement of financial results to correct material errors – whether those errors occurred by default or by design – is a necessary condition for enforcing both the Sarbanes-Oxley Section 304 provision and the new Dodd-Frank law.
The topic of audit industry reform is hot again. OK, that’s relative to where you stand on what’s hot. But in the world of legal and regulatory compliance and auditors the only thing hotter would be a significant development in the New York Attorney General’s case against Ernst & Young.
The release of Anton Valukas’ Lehman Bankruptcy Examiner’s Report on March 11, 2010 threw a fresh match on the still smoldering remains of the 2008 failure. The mainstream media, regulators, legislators and the business community had blamed everything but fraud for the financial crisis and everyone but the audit firms for preventing, warning or mitigating the devastating impact of the crisis.If you’ve been reading the stories on this site, however, you may have come to the conclusion that I did a long time ago:
There was widespread fraud at the highest levels and the Big 4 auditors will eventually be accused of malpractice and complicity for doing nothing to prevent it , to warn us, or mitigate the impact on stakeholders
The post below was originally published at Forbes.com on August 22, 2011. Given the SEC’s recent actions against Deloitte Shanghai regarding the firm’s unwillingness to provide audit workpapers for their former client Longtop, I thought it was helpful to make sure you saw it.
 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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