As if the combination of March Madness and St. Patrick weren’t enough, this slide from yesterday’s Investor Advisory Group meeting should drive many to drink.
After yesterday’s findings on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the auditor’s report, we bring you “The Watchdog that Didn’t Bark … Again.” It’s not as caught up on surveys and whatnot, as it is just pointing out some of the well, failures by auditors during the financial crisis.
The presentation was prepared by The Working Group on Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis of the IAG and includes past comments from critics like Francine McKenna and Jonathan Weil on the expectations gap between auditors and basically everyone else. But don’t worry, it also presents the audit profession’s defense of itself including past statements from the Center for Audit Quality and PwC’s Richard Sexton the head of audit it the UK, who said this:
Now, one could come to the conclusion that Mr Sexton works for his clients first and not investors but you might not agree with that.
Now before all the Big 4 auditors get in a huff, the presentation has some criticisms of the PCAOB as well, specifically on the report the Board issued in September 2010:
If you can manage to stop drinking your breakfast for two, check out the full presentation below and discuss.
Jonathan Weil over at Bloomberg has a new column up today and he is less enthusiastic about the Supreme Court decision in FEF v. PCAOB than say,