Civilisation will collapse completely by 2040 – MIT model, confirmed by KPMG [Cape Talk] The most dystopian headline you’ll read all week (hopefully).
SEC Whistleblower Issued Award of More Than $1 Million for Assistance in Investigation [National Law Review] According to the SEC award order, the anonymous SEC whistleblower alerted Commission staff to securities law violations, prompting an investigation. The whistleblower provided ongoing assistance during the investigation, meeting with Enforcement staff and supplying documents throughout the process.
New PwC cloud survey may not be asking the right folks about results [TechRepublic] You can be forgiven if you found yourself confused reading through the results of PwC’s US Cloud Business Survey. For example, 93% of the CIOs surveyed see themselves as responsible for “Company-wide strategy and defining the business outcomes and value we expect” for cloud. That’s good, right? Well, probably, but I can’t quite shake the Billy Marshall adage that “the CIO is the last to know.” That is, even as the C-suite sets top-down strategy, much of the actual decision-making rests with developers and others responsible for bottom-up execution.
Capitol Siege Prosecutors Lose Bid for Deloitte Help With Data [Bloomberg Tax] Recognizing that it needs an enormous database and will have to share exculpatory evidence with hundreds of defendants and their counsel, the government sought permission to employ Deloitte. It said Deloitte’s expertise is vital to effectively prosecuting the many cases that await. But Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6 prohibits the disclosure of grand jury materials to anybody who isn’t “government personnel.” The government argued that if hired, Deloitte’s employees would count as such personnel.
EY US opens US headquarters at One Manhattan West [PR Newswire] Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) announced today that it will officially open its new US headquarters at One Manhattan West on Monday, July 19. It will be the first day that EY professionals can begin occupying its new office, located in the Manhattan West neighborhood near the Hudson Yards district. More than 12,000 EY professionals call New York City their home office — the most of any single office in the global organization of EY member firms.
Small U.K. Audit Firms Win More Customers Among Midsize Public Companies [WSJ] The Big Four accounting firms—Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG—continue to dominate the market for audits of financial statements of large companies. The firms last year audited the books of all companies in the FTSE 100, which is made up of the 100 biggest U.K. companies by market capitalization, according to the Financial Reporting Council, the country’s accounting regulator. That is unchanged from 2019. But smaller auditing firms are gaining a foothold among medium-size companies.
Intuit will no longer be a part of an IRS program that helps millions of Americans file taxes for free [CNBC] “With the Free File program surpassing its founding goals of e-file and free tax preparation, and due to the limitations of the Free File program and conflicting demands from those outside the program, we are not able to continue in the program and deliver all of the benefits that can help consumers make more money, save more, and invest for the future,” the company wrote in a blog post.
NFTs come with big valuation challenges [Journal of Accountancy] I’m too old to understand what any of this means but maybe one of y’all can figure it out.
Auditor Watchdog Is Overhauled After SEC Report Cites Years of Dysfunction [WSJ] A former Naval officer and longtime Senate aide, Mr. Duhnke said he was determined to shake up the regulator. Now, after a run of staff terminations and resignations, whistleblower complaints, a racial-discrimination claim and disputed allegations that Mr. Duhnke tossed a soda can at another board member, the PCAOB is back to square one.
