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Are auditors too cozy with management and the Audit Committee? Unfortunately, that the way they all seem to like it. Investors and the capital markets suffer.
PwC says it will acquire Booz. Don’t count on the SEC or the PCAOB to stop PwC and its audit firm competitors from “slipping back” into the old conflicts between audit and consulting. Is anyone guarding the guardians?
Deloitte has been caught thumbing its nose at regulators again. Deloitte is the best example in the Big Four of how a large consulting business corrupts an audit firm.
Last defendant standing. Not an enviable place for EY in the case, In re Lehman Brothers Securities and Erisa Litigation. Holding out until the end has now cost EY $99 million, more than Lehman officers and directors.
I was the luncheon speaker on October 10, 2013 at the annual meeting of the Professional Liability Defense Federation (PLDF). Here is the text of my remarks.
If the JP Morgan “Whale” settlement was a true Sarbanes-Oxley success story, we’d see some bank executives going to jail. For a change.
Don’t get too excited. The same sticky issues come up every time, get tossed around and then get dropped until the next scandal or crisis provides an impetus for a discussion again.
The PCAOB’s second “progress” report on broker-dealer audits found deficiencies in all of the audit firms inspected and in 57 of the 60 audits inspected. That’s not much progress.
Do you want to learn more about those who push for a return to the gold standard? Do you know the common thread between JP Morgan, Madoff’s biggest feeder fund, Chesapeake Energy, and MF Global? Here’s a speech I gave back in May 2012 in New York to the Committee for Monetary Research and Education that touches on both topics.
If you read my writing about University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professors Chad Syverson and Joseph Gerakos and their paper on audit market exits, you may be interested in this post. It’s one of my first and it’s about the last GAO report on audit market competition.
 Francine McKenna (@retheauditors on Twitter) is a CPA, writer, speaker and subject matter expert with 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. She is a two-time Gerald Loeb Award finalist and a frequently quoted freelance journalist. For more info, click the "About" link at the bottom of this page. |
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