Financial Times (July 29)
Regulators need to achieve “a complete redesign of audits and the way auditors deliver them.” Currently, auditors provide questionable value. “Did auditors give shareholders any advance warnings about failures and losses at Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, Anglo Irish, MF Global, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG or Barclays? US companies spend nearly $50bn annually on the ‘Big Four’ (PwC, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and KPMG) but the auditor rarely speaks or is questioned at annual meetings.”
Regulators need to achieve “a complete redesign of audits and the way auditors deliver them.” Currently, auditors provide questionable value. “Did auditors give shareholders any advance warnings about failures and losses at Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, Anglo Irish, MF Global, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG or Barclays? US companies spend nearly $50bn annually on the ‘Big Four’ (PwC, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and KPMG) but the auditor rarely speaks or is questioned at annual meetings.”
Tags: Audits, Big Four, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PwC, Regulators, Shareholders
