As two days of debate over audit firm rotation gets under way in Washington, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters is pushing a new round of proxy proposals to call for corporate disclosure on audit firm tenure to give investors more insight into longstanding relationships that might raise questions about independence.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will host nearly 50 speakers over the next two days to talk about various aspects of how to get auditors to think and act more independently, despite their client relationships with the public companies they audit, and whether term limits on audit engagements is a feasible path to such independence. Meanwhile, the Carpenters union is taking up a new round of proxy proposals with a series of public companies, asking them to disclose how long the company has engaged the same audit firm, how much it has paid that firm in audit fees, whether the company has considered hiring another firm, and what other measures the company takes to keep its auditor at arm's length.

Ed Durkin, director of corporate affairs for the union, said the union has submitted the disclosure proposal to about a dozen companies. A few, including Dell, Xilinix, and CA, have already turned to the Securities and Exchange Commission to indicate they do not plan to take the issue to shareholders by asking the SEC for a “no action letter.” That's the SEC's signal that it will not take action against the company for declining to take the proposal to shareholders for a vote. “We are discussing disclosure alternatives with several companies,” Durkin says.

The union earlier tried a proxy proposal push to dozens of companies calling on them to adopt a policy on rotating the audit engagements, but it won no takers. Several sought and received no action letters from the SEC, killing the movement, Durkin says. That inspired the union to regroup and approach a different group of companies to call for not a policy on rotation but at least disclosure of the relationship.

Durkin is one of nearly 50 speakers who will address the PCAOB in Washington this week to share views on auditor independence and auditor rotation. The PCAOB published a concept release soliciting views on whether mandatory rotation or some other solution would establish greater independence for auditors. The concept release drew more than 600 comment letters during the original comment period. The board re-opened the comment period in light of its roundtable sessions, accepting comments through April 22.

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