Quando o cão de guarda não late

Gatekeepers? Or foxes in the hen house?

The auditor’s role is to be a gatekeeper. A watchdog. An advocate for shareholders. This is their public duty.

This public trust is subsidized by a government-sponsored franchise. All companies listed on major stock exchanges must have an audit opinion. Audit firms are meant to be shareholders’ first line of defense, and they are hired by and report to the independent Audit Committee of the Board of Directors.

And yet the same audit firms that stood by and watched Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers fail – Deloitte and Ernst &Young – are recipients of lucrative government contracts to audit or monitor the taxpayers’ investment in the bailed out firms. Deloitte, the Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch auditor, works for the US Federal Reserve system. Ernst & Young, Lehman’s auditor, is working for the US Treasury on the original $700 billion TARP program and with the Fed on the AIG bailout.

Em um outro trecho a articulista faz uma pergunta retórica: Vocês acreditam que as empresas de auditoria não sabiam dos problemas nas empresas auditadas, porque foram enganadas pelas mesmas?

But when accused of negligence, malpractice or complicity, the audit firms frequently claim to have been duped. Do you believe them? The industry is an oligopoly. That’s a $10 word for what happens when a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers who discuss their strategies in order to achieve common objectives.

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