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BDO’s Liability for the Bankest Verdict Against Seidman: Whose Side to Take?
Ham-and-eggs for breakfast? To the hen, the choice is a matter of interest. To the pig,…
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Future Directions for Accounting and Audit: Can Anyone Get There From Here?
Recall the frustrated Irish villager, trying to direct a befuddled tourist toward Dublin: …
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The Old Is New Again, Part II — Accounting Scams Pose Risks to Sharia Finance
When a felon's not engaged in his employment Or maturing his felonious little plans His capacity…
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Book Review: Satchel Paige – Baseball’s Philosopher on the Business of Life
Satchel: The Life and Times of An American Legend, by Larry Tye, Random House, 298 pages…
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Re-Post: The Supreme Court Targets the PCAOB: If Things Could Hardly Be Worse, Might They Perhaps Get Better?
For reasons known only to Mercury, the god of communications, this post from Thursday was not…
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The Supreme Court Targets the PCAOB: If Things Could Hardly Be Worse, Might They Perhaps Get Better?
When I went to make breakfast on Tuesday, I found a tempest swirling in my teapot:…
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Which Large Accounting Firm Will Be “Next to Fail”? It’s the Wrong Question
When was there ever so concentrated a burst of public speculation on “which Big 4 audit…
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The Indian Regulators Pronounce on Satyam — And a False Dawn is Promised
Is corporate India now vaccinated against an outbreak of white-collar financial fraud? The great and the…
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Spreading the Wealth: Manure Exchanges as a Model for Fertilizing the Green Shoots
To have a real chance at saving the banks, the policy wonks need to get out…
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Once and Future Accounting Schemes — What Will They Think Up Next?
"Everything old is new again …." — Peter Allen To pull…
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Bankers Under Stress — A Colloquium Questing for Relief
A graduate student in anthropology, able to have joined my field trip of last week, would…
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Antagonisms Among the Audit Regulators — A Warning Bell, or a Final Toll for the Profession?
There’s a gaping disconnect between the pieties on coordinated regulation of the global financial markets, espoused…
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Teed Off at Bernard Madoff? His Character was Provable on the Golf Course
Bernard Madoff was observably crooked, and his long-running swindle could easily have been stopped, early on.…
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Survival of the Large Accounting Firms — You Wanna Bet?
How confident are you in what you think you know? How certain that the facts underlying…
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Another Blow to Limited Auditor Liability — A Non-Surprise from the SEC
As reported in the on-line Financial Times for March 10 – here – the Securities and…
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Where Else Does Size Matter? Audit Firms, and the Experience in India
Suppose a law that limited the height of professional basketball players to six feet. Or that…
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Bernard Madoff — Traitorous Villain or American Hero?
Last night I was with a friend just back from Boca Raton, Florida – essentially “ground…
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Liability of Professionals — Mark Your Calendars
Herewith a two-fold endorsement — particularly for readers who are securities and litigation practitioners in the…
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Prisoners of Satyam: Price Waterhouse Auditors Still Under Arrest
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.The system seems fair But is…
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Satyam’s Auditors from PwC Remain in Custody — A Prisoners’ Dilemma for “Indian Justice”
Even as I said last month that the Indian government’s reaction to the billion-dollar fraud confessed…
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Satyam’s “Ghost Employees” — An Innovative Approach to Job Creation?
On the record so far, it is safe to predict that the legal and political maneuverings…
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In Appreciation: Peter Fleming — The Accountants Lose a Friend
I'm in mourning. New York super-lawyer Peter Fleming died on Wednesday. In times when big disputes…
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Madoff and Satyam, Dead in the Water — Scuba Diving as a Risk Metaphor
With a winter blizzard swirling outside, it’s a good day to adopt a lesson from my…
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Fraud Outsourced to India: Satyam Computer Services — Is it Enron, or Parmalat?
As this blog celebrates its first birthday, there are two related reasons why I am unconcerned…
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Business Strategy for the New Year — A Non-Review of Pierre Bayard
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, by Pierre Bayard, translated from the French, “Comment…
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Sadly Predicted — A Madoff Investor is an Apparent Suicide
Last Tuesday, December 16, I wrote that one of the "safe predictions as the Madoff story…
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Sheep on the Prowl — Madoff’s Victims Go After the Auditors
There’s an ominous if predictable new chapter this week in the saga of Bernard Madoff’s alleged…
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Bernard Madoff — Voyeurs Around the Investor Pool
There’s a rich new context for the aphorism forever linked to Warren Buffett, that “when the…
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Happy Thanksgiving — and Thank You
A brief note to advise that until mid-December it will be quiet around here — if…
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Autos and Auditors — Could the Big Four Learn from the Big Three?
I've been thinking this week of the impending fate of the large accounting firms — after…
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To Bail Out the Big Three Auto Makers? The Taxpayers Deserve the Credit
The image is another taxpayers’ nightmare, although a vision for the editorial cartoonists: a lame-duck American…
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The Carnival of Trust: November Edition
“Credere”: verb (Latin), “to trust.” From which we have creed, and credibility. And importantly, credit. As…
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Evil Accounting Spirits on the Loose — A Scary Halloween in Germany
With the mist beginning to clear after the American elections, it’s time to observe how countries…
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Disintegration of the Big Four — Where is the Tipping Point Today?
Time for an update: how large is the litigation hit that would devastate one of the…
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“Where were the Auditors?” In this Crisis, Nobody Asks – Because Nobody Cares
In the rural America of my youth, the ultimate symbol for feckless optimism was the farm…
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If the Banks are Nationalized — Why not the Auditors?
I’ve been in a lively exchange with Francine McKenna (Re: The Auditors) – she of the…
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Congress Looks at the Fall of Lehman Brothers: Was it a Sequel to Arthur Andersen?
For low-grade political theater, Monday in Washington was sadly typical: Richard Fuld, ex-CEO of the bankrupt…
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Don’t Like “Mark to Market”? How About “Mark to Congress”?
With the chaos in Washington over legislation to bail out Wall Street, looking like nothing so…
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The Conundrum of Audit Quality — How to Know It, if You Saw It
Last Friday the US Treasury’s Advisory Committee on the Audit Profession served up its report –…