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 ‘The Case Against The Auditors’ 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.
What Do Bank of America And The Federal Home Loan Banks Have In Common? A Lawsuit & PwC
By Francine • Jul 25th, 2011Have you been following the trials and tribulations of Bank of America and their auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP?
I have.
Making Mortgage Fraudsters Pay…But Via Private Lawsuits (And Some Attorneys General) Not Law Enforcement
By Francine • Jul 5th, 2011Thank goodness for the plaintiffs’ bar and class action lawsuits. And state attorneys general. Without them, there’d be very little justice yet – or compensation – for any of the mortgage-related fraud perpetrated during the real estate bubble.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Headed For A Trial In California Overtime Case
By Francine • Jun 17th, 2011There’s one thing about litigation that everyone agrees on. Anything can, and sometimes does, happen.
EY Goes To Hong Kong For A Scandal
By Francine • Jun 17th, 2011I’m sometimes accused of being too hard on one firm or another. But that criticism is unfair. I don’t have to be biased to find fault with any one of them at any point in time. I just have to watch what they do—and what they say.
Two Wildly Different Stories About Deloitte: Or Are They?
By Francine • Jun 8th, 2011In the last few weeks, I’ve written two very different stories about Deloitte. Both stories bothered me, but in different ways, so I was compelled to write about the firm both in unsympathetic and sympathetic terms. In the end, neither story says much about the state of the audit industry and the pre-2011 regulation of the audit firms.
Being Expedient: PwC Settles Satyam U.S. Class Action
By Francine • May 9th, 2011It was a quiet almost-end to a sordid chapter in PwC’s history. Last week I wrote about PwC’s settlement of their Satyam class action lawsuits in New York for Forbes. Here’s some additional commentary and analysis, including links to all the stories I’ve written about the scandal since it broke in January 2009.
Will Auditors Be Held Accountable? The PCAOB Has A Plan
By Francine • Mar 21st, 2011I was in Washington DC to attend the March 24 meeting of the new Standing Advisory Committee (SAG) of the new PCAOB. I was surprised twice by a report presented by the PCAOB’s Investor Advisory Group at last week’s meeting. First surprise: Chairman Doty was right. Good people are looking at the issue of auditor effectiveness, especially during the crisis. Second surprise: The report quoted me.
@Forbes “Why Banks, And Their Auditors, Are Getting Away With Financial System Murder”
By Francine • Mar 13th, 2011I wrote the post excerpted below for Forbes on February 25th, after seeing a great story by Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg on Citigroup.
Now the WSJ reports that, according to “sources”, the SEC and Department of Justice are having trouble making a case against Lehman executives and Ernst and Young in that case. I’m sure Anton [...]
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, 