I’ve been coaching my colleagues on how to spot updates and interesting anecdotes about revenue recognition during the second quarter earnings season. Now we are catching up on the Qs filed and comparing disclosures after concentrating on what was said in earnings releases and calls.
Once I returned from my Stigler Center fellowship I got to work catching up on the new standard, talking to experts everywhere and working with Audit Analytics to come up with the data to support stories–by my and my colleagues–about companies and their response to the new standard. My goal was to pick some of the obscure topics that were unique or focused on a specific industry.
I’ve updated the post to point to some recent news about PwC and banks that failed in Ukraine and Spain… I returned to Washington D.C. and my job as a journalist at MarketWatch in late June, after almost three months as a Journalist in Residence at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. My fellowship deliverable, in exchange for the opportunity to study with the researchers, was three posts for the Center’s Pro-Market blog on the state of the audit industry.
The last time anyone attempted to “modernize” auditor independence rules it was the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 2000, before the Enron failure and Arthur Andersen’s demise, as a result of the growing concern that firms increasing focus on consulting was distracting them for their core purpose, auditing. The Big Four firms are now opportunistically lobbying to go back in time, before Enron, when the industry was self-regulated and mostly left alone, able to have as many conflicts of interest as their powerful public clients would allow.
Why did they do it? The WSJ walks around the question but KPMG may face big fines and, I think, its partners and the PCAOB professional could face criminal charges.
My MarketWatch colleague Andrea Riquier took a field trip to Indiana earlier this year on a tip about a group that helps people struggling to get their act together and prepare for home ownership. It’s a nice thing to see, given all the ongoing struggles many still have with jobs, finances and the challenges of this economy, especially in the heartland.
Here are my remarks from the panel discussion on non-GAAP metrics I participated in onNovember 7, 2016 at NYU Stern.
The TBW v. PwC trial gave the public quite a few interesting disclosures about the audit industry and PwC, including some some pointing to how the firms’ finances, in this case PwC, work.
Here’s a brief look at the TBW Plan Trustee v. PwC trial, what led to it and what’s next.
An Appeals Court said there’s enough to proceed on allegations SAIC recklessly disregarded its obligation to disclose potential liability for the CityTime fraud in its March 2011 10K.
At MarketWatch I am fortunate that I am not expected to write a story every day, although that’s fine if something comes up like an SEC enforcement order or a spectacular corporate scandal. I am encouraged, instead, to come up with original analysis of important stories in financial regulation and legislation. We want to add […]
Jim Doty’s term as chairman of the PCAOB, the audit regulator, expired in October. All summer since I arrived in Washington D.C., leading up to that date and since, there’s been speculation about whether or not SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White would reappoint him to the job.
