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The Supreme Court will hand down their decision on Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB before on June 28th. Congressional action may be necessary to reestablish the PCAOB or a comparable regulatory authority within the SEC, if we want to continue independent regulation of the audit firms. I have some recommendations for a new PCOAB law.
My new column is up @Going Concern
The US Treasury recently decided to vote its proportionate ownership interest in Citigroup to affirm reappointment of KPMG as Citi’s auditor for the 41st consecutive year.
Maybe Treasury married KPMG all over again because they’re cheap compared to what Goldman and AIG are paying PwC.
Maybe KPMG knows this client best – [...]
It’s been my great pleasure to get to know Ryan Chittum, the reporter for the Columbia Journalism Review’s (CJR) The Audit, a blog devoted to the critical look at business journalism. Ryan and I have not yet met in person, but The Audit is a daily must read.
I did have the opportunity to meet some [...]
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx) made law what is best practice for all public companies or companies that issue public debt. That includes “smaller” companies.
I’ve just wrapped up two days of conference attendance here in New York City – The FEI Current Issues in Financial Reporting Conference and the Directorship Boardroom Leaders Forum.The Directorship BLF started with a dinner on Monday night which I was unable to attend but that featured what I heard was a great speech by “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The BLF conference itself didn’t kickoff until later Tuesday morning. In the meantime, on Monday I attended several sessions at the FEI CFRI conference.
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 [...]
When each of the notorious “financial crisis” institutions collapsed, were bailed out/nationalized by their governments or were acquired/rescued by “healthier” institutions, they were all carrying in their wallets non-qualified, clean opinions on their financial statements from their auditors.
Given the pressures on costs and the longstanding ties some finance, audit, and accounting executives have with the accounting firms, it is not surprising that the weakening of the independence commitment may come from the companies themselves. What’s the downside for them? The potential for scrutiny by corporate governance experts and journalists? You can’t argue with a recession. And in the event of an accounting scandal or restatement, plaintiff’s lawyers will have an uphill battle to penetrate the impenetrable auditor liability shields and caps.
What’s lost in all of this discussion of efficiency and cost cutting?
Independence protects shareholder’s interests.
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 [...]
I was asked by Accountancy Magazine in the UK to write a summary of the Compliance Week Annual Conference for their readers. This article, entitled ”Regulatory Reformation,“ can be found here. Please let me know what you think.
 Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. For more info, click the "About" page link at the bottom of this page. |
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