{"id":6371,"date":"2010-03-15T10:02:20","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T08:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=6371"},"modified":"2010-03-15T13:47:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T11:47:41","slug":"whats-exceptional-about-ernest-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2010\/03\/15\/whats-exceptional-about-ernest-young\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s exceptional about Ernst & Young?"},"content":{"rendered":"

FT.com \/ Companies \/ Financial Services - Lehman report casts auditors in poor light<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the FT notes:<\/p>\n

Claims about Ernst & Young’s part in the collapse of Lehman Brothers look set to open a wider debate on what has until now been one of the least dissected aspects of the financial crisis \u2014 the role played by auditors.<\/p>\n

Anton Valukas<\/a>’s report on the biggest bankruptcy in US history <\/a>has sent shockwaves through the accounting fraternity in its heavy criticism of Lehman’s auditor E&Y, one of the Big Four firms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It goes on to say:<\/p>\n

The claims against E&Y, although exceptional, give grist to a growing lobby questioning the purpose of auditors in providing investors with a true picture of the financial health of a company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is where I part company with the report. What's exceptional about E & Y's performance. They:<\/p>\n

- alloweed window dressing<\/p>\n

- put fornm over substance<\/p>\n

- ignore the true and fair over-ride<\/p>\n

- box ticked to confirm compliance with an accounting framework they helped create and which is itself misleading<\/p>\n

That's what auditors do. There's nothing exceptional about this. The only odd thing is no one has appreciated it - bar the likes of Prem Sikka, Dennis Howlett, Francine McKenna and me.<\/p>\n

This is not chance. This has been the collective turning of a blind eye.<\/p>\n

Of course that could carry on. But society will pay the price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FT.com \/ Companies \/ Financial Services – Lehman report casts auditors in poor light. As the FT notes: Claims about Ernst & Young’s part in
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,81,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountancy","category-auditing","category-big-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}