A Supreme Court ruling limiting the fines the Securities and Exchange Commission can impose on defendants to repay victims of fraud may lead to lower payouts to whistleblowers. Earlier this week the Supreme Court upheld the SEC’s right to disgorgement of funds that resulted from fraud, in an 8-1 ruling, Read More
GUEST BLOG As the world became chaotic around us earlier this year, internal auditors were pushed to work remotely, upending a lot of the conventional wisdom about what an internal auditor’s job should entail. Similarly, external auditors found themselves in a completely new world. With clients closing their offices, audit Read More
When asked to reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic during on a recent interview on CNBC, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff remarked, “the business of business can no longer just be business.” Rather, he said, it must be to improve the state of the entire world. What might have been a controversial Read More
The accounting woes of German digital payments company, Wirecard AG, appear to be deepening. The company said in a statement on Monday that there is a “prevailing likelihood” that the 1.9 billion euros ($2.15 billion) missing from its accounts had never existed in the first place. Wirecard first announced the Read More
The second-largest lender in Australia, Westpac, says that millions of breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) laws resulted from technology shortcomings and human error, but were not intentional, according to an internal audit. Westpac has recently faced accusations of 23 million instances of AML compliance violations, including failures to detect money Read More
When it comes to accounting firms, the big are getting bigger. The top ten largest audit firms boosted their share of the external auditing market in 2019, according to a new report by research firm Audit Analytics. The report finds that the market share held by the 10 biggest firms Read More
GUEST BLOG The most recent macroeconomic developments have had a dramatic impact on global markets, forcing directors and management to demonstrate the capability to make very complex decisions in a timely and incisive fashion. Increasingly, the complexity of the economic environment reaffirms how important it is that the decision-making process Read More
The Justice Department published a revision to its document that guides its processes for evaluating corporate compliance in a criminal investigation last week. The revisions give internal audit some important guidelines for assessing the corporate compliance function. The guidance on Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs helps prosecutors ask companies the Read More
Several internal audits planned this year for the Atlanta Public School system will not be completed because of the Coronavirus Crisis. In an annual report to the board, Connie Brown, the district’s executive director, said that six scheduled audits have been canceled. Five audits of unnamed schools would not be Read More
Collapsed British construction giant Carillion PLC lost a bid to get access to KPMG audit workpapers in preparation for a £250 million ($314 million) lawsuit against the accounting firm for negligence. The failed construction company, which entered into liquidation in 2018, is seeking to sue KPMG LLP and KPMG Audit Read More
