Category: Valeant Pharmaceuticals
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The Affordable Care Act is Constitutional — So What About the Broccoli?
2 comments on The Affordable Care Act is Constitutional — So What About the Broccoli?The US Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision of June 28, 2012, upholding what is known for short…
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Dimon in the Rough? Jamie Gets Up and Down with the Law-Makers
Jamie Dimon called on the Washington carpet? The rug was royal red and plush indeed —…
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Watch This Space — The Academics are Coming
August in Washington? You’ve got to be kidding. Not even the national politicians are dumb enough…
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Inaction Prevails Again — The European Parliament Defers on the Auditors
My work trip to London this week confirmed the moderate spring temperature of the bureaucratic climate…
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Dixon Illinois: Fifty Three Million Dollars Go Missing — So Who Let the Horses Out?
Trust – but verify. — Ronald Reagan The revelation of a $ 53 million…
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France’s Post-Election Week — A Case of Blue Flu
I had not intended so soon to re-visit the French presidential elections – except that on…
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Dewey Survive? If Not, Do We Learn?
The death spiral has tightened for the Dewey LeBoeuf law firm. The cascade of partner defections…
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The French and the Americans Both Go to the Polls: Et Voilà … Plus Ça Change….
This spring’s teaching assignment at a Paris law school has provided the benefit of an extended…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation: Will What Goes Around Come Around?
Could there be a plausible explanation why James Doty, chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight…
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Unification of Global Accounting Standards? It’s Time to Call Time
On the substance beneath the unending, noisy and fruitless wrangling over the relationship between generally accepted…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation — The PCAOB Bites Off More Than It Can Chew
“The unspeakable chasing the uneatable.” Oscar Wilde’s description of English fox-hunting captures the spirit of…
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PCAOB Chairman Doty Takes His Mandatory Auditor Rotation Proposal On Tour
Boone: “This is ridiculous.” Pinto: “What are we going to do?” Boone and Otter: “Road…
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Lessons from Football: Strategic Risk, Reward and Uncertainty
If the essence of strategic decision-making lies in the assessment of potential rewards under uncertain conditions,…
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The Airbus A380 as a Risk Assessment Case: Cracked Ribs Do Not Signal Good Health
Cause for concern are reports that European air safety officials have ordered inspections of cracks in…
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The Next Home for International Financial Scandal? If You Can Find It — It’s Malta
I recently made my first visit to the tiny island nation of Malta – once the…
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Review — Book of the Year: Daniel Kahneman, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”
One of my students in Risk Management at the University of Chicago beat me to a…
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The Big Four Accounting Firms’ Financial Tipping Point — Time for a Fresh Look
How quickly time does fly. It’s been three long years since my last review of the…
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A Case for Mandatory Auditor Rotation? Sharp-Eyed Students Have a Look
With comments due next month, the concept release on mandatory auditor rotation, issued by the Public…
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Lessons in Risk Management: A Broken Clock is Never Right — It’s Just Broken
The national recalibration caused by this weekend's fall-back to standard time is a reminder of the…
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A Lesson from the PCAOB’s Inspection Reports — Never Wrestle with a Pig
The October 17 release by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board of previously-undisclosed portions of its…
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UBS: Roguery at the Bank Provides a Teaching Moment
Kweku Adoboli has done me a great favor. Many others could not say the same. They…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation — The Financial Times Stumbles Onto the Carousel
On the complex issue of mandatory auditor rotation, a journal of the gravitas normally expected of…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation: If PCAOB Sanctions Were “Case-By-Case”
The Concept Release on auditor independence and mandatory rotation, issued by the Public Company Accounting Oversight…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation — The PCAOB Sails Off the Charts
“Otter: We could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions…
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A Prescription for What Ails Large-Company Audit: Real Medicine, for a Change
“Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” — Physicist Richard…
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The “Independent” Auditor’s Real Client? Time to Re-Assess, I Kid You Not
"Ahh, but the strawberries — that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made…
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The PCAOB’s Concept Release: What Might a Truly Useful Auditors’ Report Actually Say?
First reaction to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Concept Release of June 21 (here), which…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation — Further Thoughts on PCAOB Chairman Doty’s Bad Idea
Why Chairman James Doty of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board keeps pressing mandatory auditor rotation,…
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What Should Be In the Auditors’ Report? Would Users Know When They Saw It?
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be…
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Mandatory Auditor Rotation — PCAOB Chairman Doty Takes an Old Idea Out for Another Spin
Say this for Jim Doty, the new chairman of the American audit regulator – he is…
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Racing to Avoid a Crash: On the Track — On the Street
There’s a stack of final papers in my Risk Management course – and an apero on…
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Can Value Be Brought Back to the Auditor’s Report? A Tale of Two Systems
Is it the best of times, in the struggle to re-introduce value into the traditional auditor’s…
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The Role and Relevance of Audits: PCAOB Chairman Doty Creates His Own Expectations Gap
There are at least two positive reasons for attention to the New York speech delivered on…
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Risk Management: Where Shall Learning Be Found?
Here comes summer. School is out – oh happy day. – Jerry Keller, 1959 Classes…
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IASB / FASB “Convergence” Postponed Again: Tweedie and Seidman March Back to the Future
In a late pre-retirement hurrah, outgoing International Accounting Standards Board chairman David Tweedie has made a…
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The PCAOB Settlement in Satyam: PwC Agrees to Fall on its Pen-Knife
“Two aristocrats challenge each other to see which can come up with the larger number. The…
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The House of Lords — Experienced with “Disconcerting Complacency” — Looks at the Market Concentration and Role of the Auditors
Adulatory commentators are treating the March 30 report of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee…