Good morning, capital markets servants! We’re running out of Mondays pretty quickly here, this is probably your penultimate Monday news brief for 2025. So let’s get to it.
The UK audit regulator is looking into EY not rotating partners on the Shell audit, reports Reuters:
Britain’s Financial Reporting Council said on Monday it had opened an investigation into Ernst & Young’s audit of Shell’s 2024 financial statements over potential breaches of audit partner rotation rules.
Shell said in a July regulatory filing that it breached UK rules on audit partner rotation set by the Financial Reporting Council, which require listed companies to change the lead audit partner every five to seven years and impose cooling-off periods before they can return.
At the time, the company also said it would amend its 2023 and 2024 annual reports after auditor EY failed to comply with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules on partner rotation, though its financial statements would remain unchanged.
Our earlier article:
I have a feeling Gene Marks’ recent article in The Guardian will not age well if offshoring keeps going the way it is:
When I was in college and didn’t know what to do with my life, my dad offered this career advice: be a certified public accountant. Why?
“Because,” he said. “People will always need their taxes done. They’ll always need financial advice. With a CPA license, you can always hang out a shingle and put food on the table.”
It was good advice, and it’s still relevant today. So relevant, it’s the same advice I gave to my kids when they reached the same age and were equally unsure about their futures. They don’t have to become CPAs (one did). But they should become professionals licensed by the state. It’s the best job security ever.
New Jersey is joining a coalition of 20 states in suing the Trump Administration over H1-B fees, said the state’s AG via press release:
H-1B visas allow U.S. employers to hire highly skilled foreign national workers in roles that require specialized skills, including as physicians, researchers, nurses, teachers, and other vital workers, to alleviate nationwide labor shortages.
“The Trump Administration’s illegal imposition of an exorbitant $100,000 fee on those seeking H-1B visas would cause significant pain for New Jerseyans, hurting our best-in-the-nation education system, reducing access to critical health care, and setting back cutting-edge medical and scientific research,” said Attorney General Platkin. “Because of this senseless and unlawful policy, our residents would see longer wait times in emergency rooms, lengthy delays for medical appointments, and more crowded classrooms. There is no rational or legal basis for this unlawful change, and we look forward to blocking this unlawful policy in court.”
An accounting firm in The Philippines has put out a plea to help find their missing bookkeeper who was supposed to get married yesterday:
On Sunday, December 14, Upcloud Accounting said their 30-year-old bookkeeper of more than six years, Sherra De Juan, has been missing since December 10. She was scheduled to get married on December 14 at around 4 p.m. in North Fairview, Quezon City.
“Sherra has been an integral part of Upcloud Accounting for more than six years. She is not only an exceptional professional and a true asset to our team, but also a person deeply loved by our clients and everyone she works with,” the firm said on Facebook.
“Her kindness, dedication, and warm presence have touched so many of us, and it is heartbreaking to face each day without her,” it added.
Companies are spending 93% on tech and only 7% on people, says Deloitte CTO Bill Briggs in this interview with Forbes:
In boardrooms around the globe, a specific anxiety is taking hold. It isn’t just the fear of robots taking jobs; it is the paralyzing worry of “buyer’s remorse” in a market moving at breakneck speed. According to Bill Briggs, Deloitte’s chief technology officer, as we move from AI experimentation to impact/value at scale, that fear is driving a lopsided investment strategy where companies are pouring 93% of their AI budget into technology and only 7% into the people expected to use it.
People surveyed by PwC had this to say about AI use at work and how it impacts certain aspects of their job:
Let’s give this smaller firm in Pennsylvania a little attention for their recent merger, and it’s not just because the firm being merged in shares an acronym with “Resting Bitch Face.”
Effective January 1, 2026, Ross Buehler Falk & Company, LLP (RBF) will be joining Brown Plus, adding 24 team members to the Firm.
“Joining Brown Plus allows us to expand our capacity to serve clients and deliver advisory services that will complement the services we already provide,” said Jeffrey Bleacher, Managing Partner at RBF. “When we decided on this merger, we knew that we wanted a Firm that shared our client service philosophy and had a great culture, which made choosing Brown Plus an easy decision for us. They are well-known in our community for caring for their clients and their people, which is what we want for the continued legacy of our Firm.”
Founded in 1985, RBF has been committed to providing clients with innovative solutions tailored to their business and financial goals while building long-term relationships based on personal attention and integrity. The Firm has strong roots in the Lancaster community and celebrated their 40th year in business this year.
Brown Plus is #202 on the INSIDE Public Accounting Top 200 with $26,172,205 in revenue.
And in bigger firm merger news, Baker Tilly announced today that Berkowitz Pollack Brant is joining their squad:
Advisory, tax and assurance firm Baker Tilly plans to acquire Berkowitz Pollack Brant Advisors + CPAs (Berkowitz Pollack Brant), one of Florida’s largest and most respected accounting and advisory firms. The planned acquisition will establish Baker Tilly’s presence in South Florida, one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most internationally connected markets, while deepening its reach along the East Coast and expanding specialized offerings for clients.
Upon completion of the transaction, Berkowitz Pollack Brant Chief Executive Officer Joseph L. Saka, CPA/PFS, will join Baker Tilly as managing principal – Florida.
Founded in 1980 and headquartered in Miami, Berkowitz Pollack Brant has earned a national reputation for its strength in real estate taxation and for advising high-net-worth individuals and families, both in the U.S. and abroad. Its multilingual team — fluent in nearly a dozen languages — will expand Baker Tilly’s ability to serve clients with cross-border needs.
The Tax Justice Network is asking for gift tax chaos around the world with a new petition to make Elon Musk the richest man in the world (in the Scroogist sense, that is):
A new global petition is seeking to make Elon Musk the “richest man in town” this Christmas by inviting him to gift 44% of the wealth he owns to the children of the world.1
This would be enough to buy every living child under the age of 18 a $90 gift card – all 2.4 billion of them – and stop more than 100 million children from going hungry this Christmas, while keeping Elon Musk the richest man alive, the Tax Justice Network says.
The petition states the signatories would also settle for a 2% wealth tax on the superrich.
Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network, said: “We’re obviously poking a little fun here but the point is to show how extreme the concentration of wealth has become. Depending on where you are in the world, if you earn the average wage, you’d need to work anywhere from 20 times to a thousand times longer than humans have existed to earn as much wealth as Elon Musk has collected.
Seems like that’s a good place to end. If you have a tip or a story for us, reach me via email or text. Have a good week or else.