Category: Competition & Markets Authority
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Should the Big Four Have Audited Financial Statements? Should the Cobbler’s Children Have Shoes?
3 comments on Should the Big Four Have Audited Financial Statements? Should the Cobbler’s Children Have Shoes?The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s member Steven Harris proposed on March 20 “that the large…
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Previewing the PCAOB’s Public Meetings on the Auditor’s Report – Where Can We Find the Bar?
How high should the bar of expectations be set, ahead of the meetings of the Public…
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The American Accountancy Regulators’ Report Card: Not a Pretty Sight
"Kee-rist. Seven years of college, down the drain." Two “F’s” — two “D’s” — and…
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A Chinese Puzzle: What If Its Auditors Really Are Barred from Practice in America?
Do you have the patience to wait until the mud settles, and the water is clear?…
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Welcome to a Happy New Year — Or Is It?
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” — Danish physicist Niels Bohr (attrib.)…
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The PCAOB Expresses Its Thanks – Mainly to Itself
A second thing strikes a viewer, about the meetings of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board…
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The PCAOB Still Wants Audit Firms to Name Lead Partners — The Case for Indifference
The day after Thanksgiving is known in America as Black Friday – the opening of the…
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The Big Four’s Survival: Does Consulting Create an Exit Strategy?
I was in conversation with a perceptive reader, long concerned as I have been about the…
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Dixon Illinois and Its Stolen $ 53 Million: The Dust Settles, and So Do The Auditors
Settlement of litigation with the auditors was both predictable and inevitable. When announced in May 2012…
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The PCAOB’s “Game Change” Proposal on the Auditors’ Report is Small Change
Edith Orenstein’s FEI Blog is a vital resource on the antics in Washington affecting the financial…
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Auditor Re-Tender Every Five Years? Concentration in the UK Gets a Fresh Squeeze
Attitudes differ about the ingredients in a ham-and-eggs breakfast. To a chicken, it’s a matter of…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation – HR 1564’s Bump in the Road to Nowhere
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate,” the American cowboy philosopher Will Rogers querulously…
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Should Audit Reports Name the Lead Partner? I Asked Joe Btfsplk, CPA
Years ago I attended a memorable lecture by Al Capp, the rude and raucous…
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Re-Writing the Auditor’s Report — The Financial Reporting Council Swings a Two-Edged Editorial Sword
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All…
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Tired Old Boys’ Clubs — A Lesson on How the Eras End
Can a long-vibrant institution be kept alive – however steeped in tradition and a long history…
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KPMG’s Independence, Herbalife’s Stock Price, and the Game of Name Blame
What does this say about the value placed by investors on the independence of outside auditors: …
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Re:Balance Takes a Spring Time-Out — Will the Silliness Please Take a Break Too!
For the first time since launching as a blog in 2008 after its run without a…
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The PCAOB’s Inspection Reports Nibble at PwC — A Reader Asks, “Where’s the Beef?”
Food beyond compare Food beyond belief Mix it in a mincer And pretend it's beef Kidney…
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Re-Structuring the Audit Profession: The UK’s Competition Commission Hunts the Woozle
After the United Kingdom’s Competition Commission issued its report on February 22, asserting that the Big-Four-dominated…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation: The UK’s Competition Commission Stirs the Pot
For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and…
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Auditor Liability for the Dixon Fraud – Scape-Goat Hunting in the Courthouse
A nightmare of auditor litigation was predictable, when the news broke last May that the comptroller…
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Managing the Scale of Deadly Risk — Of Planes, Batteries, Cars and Guns
“Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.” —…
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Happy New Year — What’s On the Accounting and Assurance “Worry List” for 2013?
For the financial information community – issuers, users and gate-keepers — what looms ahead for 2013?…
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The Great Maple Syrup Caper — A Sticky Mess in Quebec
While bidding farewell to the old year and welcoming the new, this Christmas Eve story out…
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Congratulations to a New Chicago Cop! Now — How Do We Support You?
My nephew Rory Oliver was sworn in this morning as a new police officer for the…
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Foreign Auditor Inspections? “China Syndrome” Strikes the SEC
Confidence in the American securities and accountancy regulators was not raised, when a press release…
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Re-Posting: Foreign Auditor Inspections? “China Syndrome” Strikes the SEC
Confidence in the American securities and accountancy regulators was not raised, when a press release on…
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HP – Autonomy: How Might the Auditors Survive the Fall-Out?
The toxic cloud spreads, from the implosion of HP’s $ 11.1 billion Autonomy acquisition, and the…
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HP-Autonomy: A Red-Ink Bath for Everyone
“Either nobody in this deal understood the Company’s business, or someone was committing a fraud.”…
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The Pre-Election Mood: Enervation Over Innovation
I awoke last night in the cold sweat of nightmare terror – my own version of…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation — The British Regulator’s Latest Spin
The endlessly tiresome proposal that mandatory auditor rotation would improve audit quality – a mis-perceived solution…
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Mitt Romney Contributes to Bigger Government — A Self-Imposed Personal Tax Increase
”Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible;…
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Preserving and Re-Building Trust — An Event Preview
On October 2, the Consortium for Trustworthy Organizations at Fordham University in New York sponsors “The…
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A Personal Note: Mother Takes Her Leave — Teaching Us All the Way
Our 92-year-old mother’s family gathered, to say good-by, and to honor and celebrate a life well…
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RIP Daniel Pirron — Deloittes Mourns the Loss of a Partner — And We Should Too
What internal demons impel a suicide? No reaction but sorrow seems appropriate, for the self-inflicted gunshot…
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Sarbanes-Oxley, Ten Years After — Are We Having Fun Yet?
It has not been difficult, through this summer of discontent and turmoil in the world’s financial…
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GAAP / IFRS Convergence — Has the SEC Finally Shut It Down At Last?
With the news on July 10 that the SEC staff’s now-published report on International Financial Reporting…