Big Four auditors

How much more can we tolerate?

April 13, 2010 Tax and Ethics

When I started AccMan, one of the things I wanted to write about was professional ethics. In the meantime, other voices have emerged that know far more about the topic than I will ever likely know. One of those is Francine McKenna with whom I’ve had a long, helpful and educating relationship. A couple of [...]

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No legislated cap on audit liability

September 28, 2009 Tax and Ethics

The TimesOnLine has the story under the title: Audit firms left unprotected against claims of negligence. Under present company law, directors can agree to restrict their auditors’ liability if shareholders approve; however, to date, no blue-chip company has done so. Directors have seen little advantage in limiting their auditors’ liability, and objections by the US [...]

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The Cassandra effect

September 9, 2009 Tax and Ethics

According to Wikipedia: In Greek mythology, Cassandra (Greek: ?????????, “she who entangles men”[1]; also known as Alexandra[2]) was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that [...]

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The burning education question

February 19, 2009 General

This from a guest post at AccountancyAge (via PCW) is possibly the most important question I’ve seen asked about the future of the profession: It is clearly not sufficient to limit our learning to a question of increasingly technical methods and standards. This has been the trajectory of accounting regulation since 1970 culminating in IFRS, [...]

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