In this morning’s roundup we linked to the Accountancy Age story that reported the Audit Inspection Unit in the UK found that “Auditors have also been accused of altering documents before handing them to regulators and putting cost savings ahead of quality,” but also “The report also found some cases where partners signed audit reports before the audit was complete.”
Obviously this is no good but since the report was relevant to the FTSE 100 (and the report doesn’t name names), we just figured that this was just a blanket statement about the Big 4. However, over at FT Alphaville, Tracy Alloway shared a clipping from the report that got a little more specific:
“This issue appeared to be more prevalent at one major firm.” Okay! So one firm has a few extra partners that have itchy trigger fingers. This obviously begs the question of “which firm?” If you prefer to play the numbers, here’s the latest breakdown of the FTSE 100 we can find: PwC – 41; KPMG – 24; Deloitte – 20; E&Y – 17 (we realize the numbers don’t add up to 100, take it up with Accountancy Age).
But this is America, so we’ll put it to a vote:
