The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the United Kingdom is recommending some sweeping changes to the U.K. audit industry. After issuing its final report from a large-scale investigation into audit practices in Britain, it says some drastic changes are needed to address serious competition problems in the industry. “Legislation Read More
Blowing the whistle can be a thankless job. More than one-third of respondents who reported wrongdoing and were identified as the source were either threatened with or received a reprisal as a result, according to a 2010 survey by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent “quasi-judicial” agency that Read More
The State Bank of Pakistan has issued some new standards for financial firms on internal audit and the oversight of the function. The new internal audit guidelines set forth several requirements for how the function is structured and governed. Banks and other companies that meet the state definition of a Read More
It wouldn’t take an internal auditor long to spot the internal control problem with the former spending approval process at Wescom Solutions. An accounting manager, Nadia Minetto, was responsible for approving all spending on company cards at the Mississauga, Ontario-based software company, including her own. That means if she made Read More
According to a recent PwC report, internal auditors don’t require deep technical knowledge to begin engaging in their organization’s digital initiatives. Auditors bring a thorough understanding of risk and process — which is a valuable lens that decision-makers sometimes lack. Internal audit can also connect the dots on risks across Read More
A recently released audit of Connecticut state operations during the 2017-18 fiscal year by the state Office of the Auditors of Public Accounts found several issues with the state’s administration of federal financial assistance programs, particularly Medicaid. Among the auditors’ findings were several issues with the state Department of Social Read More
An internal audit conducted by Wilmar International, a global agribusiness conglomerate based in Singapore, uncovered a wide-scale fraud in the financial department at the company’s Ugandan palm oil subsidiary, Oil Palm Uganda Ltd (OPUL), according to a report in the Ugandan newspaper, the Observer. The internal audit found evidence of Read More
In the post–Sarbanes-Oxley world, internal auditors have increasingly assumed a larger role in corporate governance. For example, Deloitte notes that “if not for the internal audit profession, the business landscape would likely be littered with significantly more disclosures of material weaknesses and revelations of noncompliance with the [Sarbanes-Oxley] Act” (“Optimizing Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission awarded a total $50 million to two whistleblowers who assisted the agency in bringing a successful enforcement action. One whistleblower received an award of $37 million and the other received an award of $13 million. While the SEC did not disclose the identities of the Read More
Shares of telecom equipment maker Nokia dropped more than 8 percent last Friday after the company revealed that it is investigating potential compliance problems at its Alcatel-Lucent unit, which it acquired in 2016. The Finnish company disclosed the investigation into certain transactions of the unit in its annual report, which Read More
