Going In Circles: A Few Remarks On Audit Reform
Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled that there’s a lot of traffic in my lane. What I mean is, it’s good for everyone that we’re talking about these issues and that someone other than me and a few other...
View ArticleErnst & Young Lehman Litigation: It’s No Victory If You’re Going To Trial
It wasn’t even a verdict. Just a decision by New York Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan in one Lehman failure case Ernst & Young is fighting. A decision to allow substantially all of the allegations...
View ArticleNew at Forbes: My Comments On The Latest Sanctions Against Ernst & Young
As if Ernst & Young didn’t have enough to worry about: To his credit, Judge Kaplan does leave one important allegation for Ernst & Young to defend: Ernst & Young had reason to know that...
View ArticleNew @Forbes: Bank of America Plays Hide And Seek Using Fannie Mae
I’m either spending way too much time on the site “They Rule” or I’ve been doing this too long. Making the non-obvious connections between the audit firms and their clients, between the clients and...
View ArticleMcKenna Now Writing At American Banker
I’m now writing a weekly column for American Banker. It’s called “Accountable” and will cover corporate governance, risk management, and the role of professional services firms in financial services....
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Groupon: You Must Have Fallen From The Sky
Last week was Groupon’s big week, although not in a good way. What happened? Well, the premier source of daily deal dish got knocked down a few more pegs after announcing a revision to 4th quarter...
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Why Is The SEC Pursuing Deloitte Shanghai? Looks Like It’s Personal
The Securities and Exchange Commission is rattling a dull sabre again towards Shanghai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CPA Ltd. for its refusal to provide the agency with audit work papers related to...
View ArticleBig Four Auditors and Jury Trials: Not In The U.S.
Deloitte has settled a shareholder case against the firm stemming from their role as auditor of Bear Stearns, one of the early financial services firms to fail, be force sold or nationalized during...
View ArticleFour Years After Madoff, Audits and Auditors of Broker-Dealers Still Lousy
Last week I posted a column at Forbes: Already Behind The Eight-Ball: Auditors of Broker-Dealers Are A Disaster The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the US audit industry regulator, issued...
View ArticleHP and Autonomy: Material Writedown With A Side Of Serious Fraud
I wrote something quick and dirty today at Forbes about HP’s allegations of “willful misstatements” by former executives of its acquisition Autonomy. The accusations were made to partly explain an $8...
View ArticleScott London Subverted Sarbanes-Oxley: Big Four Mock Audit Partner Rotation
The earth rotates revolves around the sun. Galaxy Doppler shifts are almost always redshifts. The further away the galaxy the faster it is receding. I’m learning a lot in my first class, Cosmology, in...
View ArticleThe Problem Of An Audit Firm Market Exit: New Research From University of...
New research, “Competition in the Audit Market: Policy Implications,” by University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professors Joseph Gerakos and Chad Syverson says an unexpected market exit of any...
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On Herbalife And The Slow Death Of Value Investing
Big egos make shares move by waving wands. That makes picking stocks based on fundamental analysis more than slightly anachronistic. You can pick ‘em, ya see, but you’re unlikely to be able to take a...
View ArticleLatest Way Big Four Trying To Dodge Liability
You’re never going to believe it. Sometimes I wonder if some lawyers think they should be paid based on how cute and clever they can be rather than how wise or judicious they are in their choice of...
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Winning! PwC Argues Both Sides Of The Partner Naming Debate
Advice from master manipulators Welch and Buffett How do the audit firms keep winning the war while losing battles left and right? They use the law and the courts to delay, deter and distract from...
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Update: The Shoemaker’s Children… The Big Four And Their Own Broker-Dealers
Did you know that each of the Big Four audit firms and some of the next tier also run SEC-registered broker-dealers? Although they don’t hold customer money, yet, they do count on the capital from...
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Piling Up For PwC
Update for breaking news: The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Rapoport reports tonight that the PCAOB is looking into PwC’s tax advice to Caterpillar for auditor independence violations. The schemes...
View ArticleDeloitte US First Female CEO; There’s More We Don’t Know
Wouldn’t it be nice if investors and other interested parties could look up Cathy Engelbert in a public and easily accessible registry and find out about all the audit clients where she has been a lead...
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PCAOB’s Franzel Speaks to AAA; Are Auditors’ ICFR Opinions Just “Busy-Work”?
On Friday at MarketWatch I gave readers a little preview of a speech PCAOB member Jeanette Franzel gave at an all day COSO workshop on Saturday at the AAA Annual Meeting in Chicago. I wanted to...
View ArticleBest Case Yet For Publishing Audit Partner Names: Grant Thornton’s Koeppel
Update: The PCAOB will vote on its final rule requiring Form AP and information about participating audit member firms on Tuesday. Here’s the notice. The meeting is open to the public and will take...
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