- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Neil Hodge2022-03-30T18:00:00
The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating whether large audit firm consulting services affect auditor independence. Any action taken might mirror the United Kingdom’s ongoing actions to break up the Big Four’s dominance.
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Paul Munter, acting chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission, released a statement acknowledging recurring issues agency staff have observed regarding auditor independence consultations.
Companies should question their auditors throughout the audit process, particularly in the wake of a spate of recent enforcement actions in the United Kingdom targeting the Big Four and other large firms for audit deficiencies.
The Big Four audit firms have refused to back a U.K. government plan to break their dominance of the market by forcing them to share work with smaller competitors to give them a foothold.
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after an ambitious first three years in the role that have seen the agency work to update many of its standards deemed outdated.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.
