On February 28 the US Justice Department fined Deloitte & Touche LLP $149.5 million for alleged fraud against the government related to its role as the independent outside auditor of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. Also: The damages phase of the FDIC v. PwC case regarding Colonial Bank is set to begin in Washington DC on March 20.
Here’s a brief look at the TBW Plan Trustee v. PwC trial, what led to it and what’s next.
Several recent developments regarding auditor whistleblowers should be of interest to internal and external auditors and compliance professionals, whether they work for a public company or a professional services provider.
There’s a conference planned for next week, May 15, at Gleacher Center in Chicago, “30 Years After the Failure of Continental Illinois Bank: Have We Solved Too Big to Fail?” I wrote about my experience at CINB, my first job, for American Banker back in 2011.
According to Freelancers Union, almost one-third of the American workforce is independent. That’s nearly 42 million people and growing. The staffing industry, which should support the wave of new freelancers, hasn’t adapted since William Russell Kelly founded the Russell Kelly Office Service in Detroit in 1946.
Company executives and directors like to believe they can purchase a posse of “trusted advisors”. Instead, they’ve often only bought a gaggle of self-interested auditors, lawyers, and consultants. But to whom does each of those vendors owe loyalty?
My notes for guest lectures (there were two sections, back-to-back) February 10, 2014 for Bus F332/Law 725, Finance and Society, at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, taught by Professor Anat Admati. Emphasis: The auditors’ role in corporate governance in financial institutions and specifically how auditors not inadvertently stifle the actual use of compensation clawbacks.
Is it fair to “tar and feather” professionals when they are sued or only when they are convicted of crimes? How much time must pass before they can get on with their lives?
Your first obligation as a professional is to your client, not your firm, your partners, or even your family.
If the JP Morgan “Whale” settlement was a true Sarbanes-Oxley success story, we’d see some bank executives going to jail. For a change.
Unfortunately, regulatory supervision of investment advisors, broker-dealers, and their auditors leaves a lot to be desired. PwC missed years of illegal activity at S.A.C. Capital Advisors. If only we could say that’s the first time.
I put two new columns up at Forbes recently that talk about JPMorgan, PwC, Senator Levin’s “Whale” hearings, and all the other stuff JPMorgan and Jamie Dimon are really worried about.
