Posts Tagged ‘audit firms’
Ex-KPMG Boss Fined on Insider Tip Scandal
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has fined the former vice-chair of KPMG’s audit practice $100,000 for his role in a scandal where KPMG offered jobs to PCAOB employees in exchange for confidential information about upcoming inspections of KPMG audits. You might remember the story from several years ago. The feds indicted three KPMG partners…
Read MoreSEC Reminds on Auditor Independence
The top accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission has fired off a statement this week about the importance of audit firm independence and corporate audit committees overseeing that relationship with the external auditor — almost one year to the day after the Trump Administration’s SEC relaxed auditor independence rules. The statement came from Paul…
Read MorePCAOB Alert on Audits, External Data
The PCAOB published fresh guidance last week about how auditors should handle evidence supplied by others to help the auditor assess financial statements, important performance or valuation metrics, and, well, all the other stuff that can go into an audit report these days. The guidance is formally titled “Evaluating Relevance and Reliability of Audit Evidence…
Read MorePCAOB Stands Pat on Data Analytics
The PCAOB released an update Thursday on its thinking about how to use data analytics and related technologies in financial audits, and it seems that the regulator will maintain for now its belief that no new auditing standards to address technology are necessary. For several years now, the PCAOB has run a small task force…
Read MoreHeadaches on ICFR and Better Tech
My phone rang the other day, and on the line was my friend the tech vendor. He was calling to tell me about new whiz-bang software his firm is developing to identify internal control issues — and within a few minutes, we stumbled into a dilemma about effective internal controls that needs attention. Hear me…
Read MoreICFR, Still Driving Companies Nuts
We have yet another report today depicting the tensions companies face when building internal control over financial reporting, including the enduring suspicion that many audit firms raise questions about internal controls simply to look good to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The report, released Tuesday by Financial Executives International, interviewed 145 financial reporting executives…
Read MorePCAOB Member Uncorks on Agenda
One of the five members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board blasted his own agency on Wednesday, saying that the regulator’s plans for the next 12 to 18 months are “a tragic mistake” that ignore the needs of investors and undermine the credibility of corporate financial reporting. The statement came from PCAOB board member…
Read MoreMarcum Dinged on Independence Failures
Oh lord, we have another contestant for most unfortunate business misconduct of 2019. The audit firm Marcum has been sanctioned for violating rules for audit firm independence, where poor oversight from Marcum’s partner in charge of audit firm independence played a starring role. The PCAOB hit Marcum with a fine of $450,000, plus another $50,000…
Read MoreQuestions on KPMG Ethics Fiasco
By now you might already know the news: KPMG, one of the largest audit firms in the world, has agreed to pay $50 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges from two separate scandals at the firm — one related to KPMG partners offering jobs to audit industry regulators in exchange for…
Read MoreAudit Firms, Cybersecurity Risk, and You
A member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board gave a speech last week about the role of audit firms in cybersecurity — and raised a point people seldom say aloud: the audit firm’s role is a relatively small one. Kathleen Hamm, a member of the PCAOB since last year, gave her remarks at a…
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