Remember last week when the New York Times published a report that quoted one Deloitte employee who got a lot of reading done while working on JP Morgan Chase's Independent Foreclosure Review? Deloitte was not impressed. Although a Huffington Post report from earlier this week has quoted a source who had their own twist on the story time depiction — specifically, that it was also an opportunity to work on bilingual skills:
A consultant at Deloitte, hired by JPMorgan Chase to review its loan files, said that his team simply didn't understand many of the bank's processes, and weren't permitted to ask. "It was like trying to read a book written in a foreign language," he said of initial attempts to audit the bank's loans.
Because the mortgage crisis has heart-wrenching stories, perhaps a more dire visual is in order:
"It was like a badly-made ship designed to sink," said a Deloitte employee, who reviewed JPMorgan Chase loans.
Predictably, the firm is not a fan of either these:
[W]e strongly disagree with this individual’s characterization of the complex independent foreclosure review process and fully stand behind the quality of our work.
But is Deloitte really standing behind their work? If I may continue with the boats thing — wouldn't "standing behind their work" entail "going down with the ship?" They were kinda like a first mate or something or other on this whole IFR voyage and typically those guys stick around with the captain when he says, "Well, the old girl is going down. Best thing to do is buckle down, be men about it, and hope we don't freeze to death." No! That's not what they're doing at all!
When the OCC settled, Deloitte got to jump in a lifeboat. A lifeboat filled with money. The problem now is that the lifeboat may not be big enough for all that money and the people who were working on the IFRs.
What happens to those people remains to be seen, but I guess Deloitte could still "stand behind their work." It just seems strange to say that while they're rowing away and thinking, "Whew. Glad that's over."
Foreclosure Review Insiders Portray Massive Failure, Doomed From The Start [HP via Francine McKenna]
