Contrary to what a number of politicians have asserted in recent days, the current jobless rate is not due to a pervasive desire to cash unemployment checks and lounge around or a desire to become "hobos," as Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) asserted earlier this year.

A new Deloitte study soberly concluded what many employers have suspected for years: The potential employment pool is becoming less and less qualified for the jobs that are available.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's aggressive crackdown on illegal insider trading has snared a former Deloitte Tax LLP partner and his wife.

The pair on Tuesday was accused with repeatedly leaking confidential merger and acquisition information to family members overseas in what the regulator calls a multi-million dollar insider trading scheme.

The SEC alleges that Arnold McClellan, head of one of Deloitte's regional mergers and acquisitions teams, and his wife Annabel provided advance notice of at least seven acquisitions planned by Deloitte's clients to Annabel's sister and brother-in-law in London. The brother-in-law then took positions in US companies that were targets of acquisitions by Arnold McClellan's clients.

CFOs at large companies are much more pessimistic than they were just three months ago.

According to yet another new survey of chief financial officer sentiment, just 47 percent said they are more optimistic about their company's prospects and 36 percent are less optimistic. Last quarter, nearly two-thirds said they were more optimistic and only 17 percent were less optimistic.

Companies are focused on compliance with new proxy disclosure rules, but they may not be providing the whole picture of the company’s risk management strategy, according to a new report out by corporate advisory firm Deloitte.

In analyzing proxy statements by 398 S&P 500 companies, Deloitte found that although companies were meeting basic compliance requirements for risk oversight, they fell short of providing vital information on risk management practices—information which could provide greater comfort to regulators, investors and other stakeholders into risk mitigation efforts at the company.

The Financial reporting Council of the UK has released the annual results of its inspection of the big four accounting firms. Its verdict? Could do better.

Each of the big four - KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young - were found to have been less than perfect. Each was found guilty of specific misdemeanors, but the common thread running through the report was that auditors faced too much internal pressure to do non-audit work, so that the quality and independence of the audits were in danger of slipping.

Submitted by Caleb Newquist, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

Submitted by Caleb Newquist, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

American Apparel's downward spiral continues as Bloomberg reports that the company has been subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY over the company's "change in accounting firms."

In a $30 million lawsuit filed last month, Marin County, Calif. accused Deloitte Consulting of misrepresenting its skills and capabilities when it was trying to win the county's business and handle an ERP implementation, according to this report.

Also in June, a District Court in Texas awarded Dillard's $246 million in its lawsuit against i2, which is now part of JDA. Dillard's had alleged that i2 failed to meet its obligations under a software license and related maintenance agreements.
 

 


Hey, I got hold of some interesting data from Audit Analytics on the length of time that some US companies have had the same auditors.

The issue arises in connection with a CFO cover story on audit fees that I wrote about yesterday.

Ernst & Young is under fire for its role in Lehman’s bankruptcy filing. According to some press reports, it might even face liability for its audit.