E&Y to examine its involvement with Olympus December 8, 2011 THE JAPANESE arm of Ernst & Young is to set up an external committee to investigate its audit of scandal-ridden Olympus. The move follows a separate probe into an accounting scandal at the camera maker, which raised issues with its audit and work done by a previous auditor. Ernst & Young ShinNihon said it has [...]
Blacks tanks as it seeks an Xmas buyer December 7, 2011 STRUGGLING outdoor equipment retailer Blacks Leisure yesterday put itself up for sale, sending its shares plummeting as it admitted it had failed to find an alternative route out of it funding troubles. Shares in Blacks, which have lost 90 per cent of their value since the start of the year, extended losses to close at [...]
Blacks to be put up for sale December 7, 2011 Blacks Leisure plans to put itself up for sale after the struggling outdoor retailer failed to raise enough funds to carry on the business. The retailer had issued a profit warning last month in the run-up to Christmas, after the retailer in October said it was evaluating all kinds of funding options. “The directors do [...]
Job placements at 25-month low December 6, 2011 British recruitment firms said the number of people placed in permanent jobs fell at the fastest pace since 2009 in November, highlighting the pressures on the economy at a time of public spending cuts and worries about the Eurozone. A survey for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and accountant KPMG released today shows that [...]
Auditors hit by Olympus probe verdict December 6, 2011 KPMG AZSA’s reputation took a hit yesterday when the independent investigation into Olympus released a report naming substandard external auditing as one of the central factors in the scandal. The report censured the Japanese auditing firm, of which Olympus was a long-standing client, for issuing unqualified clean opinions without in-depth evaluation and for neglecting to [...]
SNAPSHOT OF A SCANDAL December 6, 2011 THE EXECUTIVES Masatoshi Kishimoto (far right) President 1993 – 2001 Tsuyoshi Kikukawa (right) President 2001 – 2011 Hisashi Mori former executive vice president – left Nov 2011 Hideo Yamada ex-internal auditor – left Nov 2011 “The core of management was corrupted and the surrounding portion was contaminated,” the report found THE WHISTLEBLOWER Michael Woodford Ousted [...]
The EC proposals for audit reform: A costly mistake December 1, 2011 THE European Commission has pulled off some feat with its proposals for audit market reform this week. It has united businesses, investors, the Big Four (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers) and even on some points emerging and mid-sized auditors in their criticism of the proposals. How? Because the measures the Commission proposes won’t [...]
UK business slams Barnier audit reforms November 30, 2011 A number of business groups, including the CBI, yesterday slammed Michel Barnier’s proposals to shake up the audit market, saying they were “the latest in a long line of unnecessary distractions coming out of Brussels that would only serve to add to business costs”. Matthew Fell, director for competitive markets at the CBI, the employers’ [...]
DRAFT AUDIT REFORMS: KEY POINTS November 30, 2011 ● Mandatory rotation Companies will have to change audit firm after a maximum of six years, or nine years if they employ more than one auditor. Audit firms will not be allowed to tender for the same client’s business until after a four-year “cooling-off” period when the contract ends. ● Mandatory tendering The biggest companies [...]
KPMG recovers $500m in MF Global assets November 29, 2011 MF GLOBAL UK administrator KPMG said it had recovered about $500m (£320m) of client assets frozen at the defunct broker, and planned to make significant returns to customers before a March 2012 deadline. “We have so far collected about a half of the approximate $1bn outstanding but it is hard to speculate on the final [...]