- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) latest batch of 2021 audit inspection reports included a setback in results for Marcum largely related to the firm’s work dealing with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).
Of five firms inspected annually whose reports were published Monday, Marcum fared the worst, with 15 of its 25 audits reviewed recording deficiencies. The problem identified most frequently—11 times—was the firm’s insufficiency evaluating the appropriateness of an issuer’s accounting method or disclosure for one or more transactions or accounts.
Audit areas with frequent deficiencies included equity and equity-related transactions (nine) and revenue and related accounts (four).
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An ex-partner at Marcum agreed to pay $75,000 to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission he failed to remediate numerous quality control deficiencies magnified by the audit firm’s special purpose acquisition company client boom.
The U.K. arm of audit firm Crowe agreed to pay $750,000 as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged professional care and skepticism failures regarding its 2018 audit of music streaming subscription company Akazoo.
Marcum agreed to pay $13 million in penalties levied by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board for alleged quality control failures stemming from the audit firm’s work with special purpose acquisition company clients.
Chinese authorities banned PwC’s Chinese unit from performing audits in the country for six months, labeling the subsidiary’s flawed audit work as complicit in the failure of giant property developer Evergrande.
Erica Williams was reappointed to a second term as chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board after an ambitious first three years in the role that have seen the agency work to update many of its standards deemed outdated.
Software company Autodesk said it won’t restate several years of financial statements following an audit committee investigation into potential accounting misconduct.
