We hit half-million: The Cidr Report

Fri May 2 10:47:46 UTC 2014

    Well,

    I was just a suit drone into one of their 100 little IT firm around
the world.

    The nearest I got to an actual AA associate was during a 1 month
project in Chicago (:

    Wasted my time really... They billed 3 months to their clients, for
a project that took 1 month, and I was asked to fill the cubicle for 2
month doing nothing.

-----
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 18:43, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 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
>