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It’s difficult for me to imagine a new generation of systemically important financial services company CEOs without strong risk management experience. But the newly prominent role also gives shareholders, regulators, and the media an easy target for ridicule after a corporate stumble or failure.
Your first obligation as a professional is to your client, not your firm, your partners, or even your family.
Amazing but true, the MF Global story is still red hot, reason being $1.2 billion in customer funds is still missing. Here’s a recap of recent columns at Forbes and American Banker that have tracked new developments.
Lots of news and updates on MF Global, PricewaterhouseCoopers, JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon and the politics of money.
I asked CPA and blogger Jim Ulvog to write a guest post on the Olympus scandal because he was the only one to explain it to me from an accounting perspective. An investigative report prepared by auditor Ernst & Young Shin Nihon – yes, the one that missed the fraud – is a scathing indictment of the company and others potentially complicit in the multi-year subterfuge.
I had the pleasure of visiting James Madison University on November 15-16 to meet with faculty in the School of Accounting, some student groups and to speak at the Beta Alpha Psi Initiation Dinner.
I was the first to report on December 6 the irony of Deloitte having been selected by, of all banks, JP Morgan Chase. The high likelihood of a conflict between the bank and the audit firm, and possibly the individual Deloitte partners assigned to the JP Morgan Chase review, should have been obvious to anyone at the OCC. It turns out I was right.
Yesterday, The Financial Times asked me to comment on the Enron anniversary. Last week, it was the Houston Chronicle. So Arthur Andersen’s demise is ten years behind us. Today, I re-post one of my first, from October 13, 2006, which presents my thoughts from that time. As I re-read it today, how little has truly [...]
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.
My October 6 column for American Banker was cited by Congresswoman Maxine Waters and others to support the strong management of conflicts of interest by the OCC in the mortgage servicer reviews as well as full disclosure of vendors and their engagement letters with the banks. On November 22, 2011, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) disclosed the names of the consultants, their clients and redacted versions of the engagement letters between the banks and consultants.
 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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