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."

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

The PCAOB has had a pretty good run of late. It all started with the SCOTUS handing them a loss that was really a win and the Board has, most recently, gotten ambitious with new risk assessment standards. What's more is the call of acting Chair Dan Goelzer to have the Board's enforcement inspections held publicly so audit firms can't get all mysterio about what they did and did not do to warrant said inspection.

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

As we've mentioned, it's been a rough summer - hell a rough year - for KV Pharmaceutical. The company paid nearly $26 million to the Justice Department back in February, had massive layoffs in March and their Chairman and CFO back in June.

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

Late on Friday, it was reported that Sue Sachdeva will plead guilty to six felony counts in the Koss embezzlement case that was discovered at the end of last year.

Submitted by Adrienne Gonzalez, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

If we still care about financial reform, we should especially care about proposed changes to the Government Accounting Standards Board because, let's face it, government accounting could really use a helping hand. Were government pensions forced to use the same reporting rules as every other pension, a $3 trillion hole would open up and we would see immediately that rules in desperate need of repair have remained broken because the current system allows the truth to be buried in the footnotes.

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

Yesterday we briefly picked up the Overstock beat as Sam Antar pointed out that everyone's favorite Salt Lake City resident got a little confused about when they knew their gain contingency existed that resulted in some contradictory disclosures.

We're not quite as sure as others are that yesterday's Supreme Court decision regarding SarbOx is so utterly meaningless regarding the future of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Sure, the court said the law is still fully in effect, blah, blah, blah.

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

In what amounts to a huge win for BDO, the Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami has ordered a new trial in the case between BDO and Banco Espirito Santo: