We hit half-million: The Cidr Report

Thu May 1 22:43:08 UTC 2014

Care to comment on how you feel about the COI that developed between AA Consulting business at Enron and AA auditing Enron?

Not asking you to disclose anything confidential, but if you have wisdom to impart about any sort of generic lessons learned, etc. that might be relevant to this discussion, I think that could be useful.

Owen

On May 1, 2014, at 12:56 PM, Alain Hebert <ahebert at pubnix.net> wrote:

>    Hey,
> 
>    I worked for them (AA) in the early 90's =D
> 
> -----
> Alain Hebert                                ahebert at pubnix.net   
> PubNIX Inc.        
> 50 boul. St-Charles
> P.O. Box 26770     Beaconsfield, Quebec     H9W 6G7
> Tel: 514-990-5911  http://www.pubnix.net    Fax: 514-990-9443
> 
> On 05/01/14 14:07, John Souter wrote:
>> On 01/05/14 17:41, Owen DeLong wrote:
>>> The problem with this theory is that if auditors can be so easily put to the
>>> street, you run into the risk of auditors altering behavior to increase customer
>>> satisfaction in ways that prevent them from providing the controls that are the
>>> reason auditors exist in the first place.
>> I disagree.  And the power balance is generally tilted way in favour of
>> the auditors, as many people on this thread have already commented.  In
>> my experience, most companies are afraid/inhibited to raise issues or
>> challenge their auditors in any way.  Nobody is asking auditors to roll
>> over, but if their behaviour is unprofessional/illogical, then a short
>> sharp shock should do the trick.
>> 
>>> If you don’t believe me, examine the history of Arthur Anderson and their
>>> relationship with a certain Houston-based company which failed spectacularly.
>> Can't really comment, but it was financial auditing, and ISTR that many
>> things failed in that situation - not just financial auditing.
>> 
>> John