PCAOB Criticizes PwC – PwC Respectfully Disagrees

The PCAOB has issued its report on PwC for 2006 today, Friday, at 4:30 Eastern time. Who said accountants aren’t savvy about the media?

The report is not very positive (although none of them have been for any of the Big 4) and leads off with some issues regarding a mortgage servicer. Who woulda thunk that the regulators would be so prescient?

The response from PwC basically disagrees with every finding, including claiming in one case that the finding was factually incorrect!

This is not good audit practice on the part of the PCAOB. Given that field work was completed in January 2007, ten months ago, they have been aware of PwC’s disagreements for a long time and could not resolve the differences. So the disagreement goes public. Now what?

Does the Sarbanes-Oxley law have a provision for sanctioning obstinate audit firms?

How about maybe airing the dirty laundry that is Part 2 of the report?