THE MAN HAS SPOKEN. This is the official statement from Barry Melancon in response to the PCAOB's proposed broker-dealer audit standards:
“The AICPA is committed to activities that enhance audit quality and has been a leader assisting practitioners in achieving that goal.
“We have been consistent in our position that brokers and dealers should be subject to SEC regulation and that auditors of those brokers and dealers that carry, clear or have custody of customer funds should be subject to the PCAOB's standards, inspections and enforcement programs.
“The PCAOB's interim inspection program, established to determine the appropriate scope of regulation under the Dodd-Frank Act, will provide insight into which auditors should be subject to the full regulation of the PCAOB.
“We believe it is critical that the PCAOB use risk analysis in determining which audits of broker-dealers should be included in a permanent inspection program.
“We urge the Board to act expeditiously in determining the scope of that program.”
Britain’s top accountants are to have their own books scrutinised after the consumer watchdog referred the business of checking companies’ figures for a full-scale competition inquiry. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it had been concerned for some time that the audit market is highly concentrated with low levels of switching and substantial barriers to entry. The watchdog estimates that in 2010 the “big four” firms, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young, earned 99% of audit fees paid by FTSE 100 companies, while between 2002 and 2010 only 2.3% of FTSE 100 firms changed their auditor. [