Case1.1 Enron Corp

Professional standards do not allow for a company’s auditors to also provide tax services and still retain their independence. The SEC and the PCAOB have put restrictions on the nonaudit services that a company’s auditors can provide. These restrictions really limit the company’s auditors to the extent that if a firm provides auditing services for a company they cannot really provide any other types of services. This limitation was put into place in order to maintain the independence of auditors and the companies that they audit. If an accounting firm was allowed to provide auditing services as well as tax services to a company, the independence, in such a case, of the firm would not be maintained because the firm would be in part auditing

Without a question the BOD should have placed a high degree of reliance on Andersen, which at the time was one of the most prestigious worldwide accounting firms. The auditors should have known the kind of accounting taking place in Enron. In my opinion, Andersen knew, at least to some extent, the company’s financial condition. However, Enron was already too deep under water that blowing the whistle so late would have created problems for Andersen as well. According to the case, on 02/05/01, Andersen held internal meeting during which it addressed the company’s accounting from and oversight of the LJM partnership. Andersen never discussed these concerns with the Audit and Compliance Committee. Although the BOD has its faults, it should have been able to rely on Andersen’s work.

Arthur Andersen (AA) contributed to the Enron disaster when it has failed to the management by failing to have Enron establish and enforce its own internal control. There has been flaws to AA‘s internal control. There has been assumption that AA partners were too motivated by revenue recognition thus, overlooking several criteria when providing their services to Enron. Additionally, AA also recognised the retention of audit clients as vital and a loss of any clients would be disadvantaged to an auditor’s career. In AA internal control, the person who is able to make most of the decisions is the person who is most concerned about the revenue or losses of the client’s company.

Auditing firms are no longer able to focus primarily on selling additional services. Instead, they are now concerned with providing excellent service to the client. This has resulted in additional tax and financial reporting

Exceptions can be approved by the Board and are made in cases where the revenue paid for such services contributes less than 5% of revenues paid to the auditing firm. Also, a public accounting firm may provide these non-audit services along with audit services if it is pre-approved by the audit committee of the public company. The audit committee will disclose to investors in periodic reports its decision to approve the performance of non-audit services and audit services by the same accounting firm. This requirement to disclose to investors is likely to inhibit auditing committees from approving the performance of auditing and non-auditing services by the same accounting firm. Other sections outline audit partner rotations, accounting firm reporting procedures, and executive officer independence. Specifically, subsection 206 states that the CEO, Controller, CFO, Chief Accounting Officer or similarly positioned employees cannot have been employed by the company's audit firm for one year prior to the audit.

If the client is publicly held, the auditor must also report the matter directly to the SEC. Such decisions are complex and normally involve consultation by the auditor with the auditor’s legal counsel.

Section 201 prohibits any registered public accounting firm from providing the following non-audit services to audit clients: “bookkeeping or other services related to the accounting records, financial info systems design or implementation, appraisal or valuation services, fairness opinions, actuarial services, internal audit outsourcing services, management functions or human resources, broker or dealer investment advisor or investment banking services, legal services and expert services unrelated to the audit, any other service the board determines impermissible” (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2002). Section 202 requires the issuer’s audit committee to preapprove all auditing and non-auditing services that will be provided to the issuer (Philipp, CPA, & CGMA, 2014). Section 203 establishes mandatory and substantive rotation of audit partner and partner responsible for review of the audit every 5 years (Philipp, CPA, & CGMA, 2014). Section 204 needs the public accounting firm to report to the audit committee such as “critical accounting policies and practices, alternative accounting treatments within GAAP discussed with management and material written communications between auditor’s firm and management of the issuer” (Philipp, CPA, & CGMA, 2014). Section 206 prohibits the public accounting firm from providing audit services for the issuer if the CEO, CFO, CAO or any person serving in the equivalent capacity of

In my opinion, the parties that were responsible for the “crisis of confidence” on the part of the public in the accounting profession were:

Recently, the question of liability has become more prevalent in the practice of public accounting. The AICPA (American Institute of CPAs) has been lobbying for liability reform in cases involving negligence or fraud committed by public accountants. So, being an accounting major myself, I wanted to write about the ongoing fight involving liability reform in public accounting.

Auditors have the responsibilities as well as management to report internal controls. The auditors must examine closely management’s claim of effectiveness and also physically test the controls. After the examination, the auditors should express their opinion and any recommendations to fix any internal control weaknesses.

Businesses, investors, creditors rely on accounting ethics. The accounting profession requires honesty, consistency with industry standards, and compliance with laws and regulations. The ethics increase the responsibility and integrity of accounting professionals, and public trust. The ethical requirements influence the management behavior and decision-making. The financial scandal of Enron and Arthur Anderson demonstrates the failure of fundamental ethical framework, such as off-balance sheet transactions, misrepresentation of financial statements, inaccurate disclosure, manipulations with earnings, etc. The confronted accounting profession and concern for ethics in businesses forced regulators to revise the conceptual framework of accounting processes.

General Standard #2: The auditor must maintain independence in mental attitude in all matters relating to the audit (AICPA, 2012). Anderson did not practice independence from the company they were auditing. They were too involved in too many of Enron’s activities.

Assigned auditors were more than aware of the accounting misrepresentation of financial statements, overstating net income. Still instead of walking away from the client and resign, Andersen in pursuing short-term goals stayed with the company and moreover played by the Giant’s rules. More and more accounting firms at that time started to provide consulting services along with auditing to the same companies which always indicates a conflict of interests. Auditors are the guardians and rules players where consultants are giving advices and showing how to avoid some accounting oversights. Andersen also in order to make good profits stepped on the side of combining two contradicting to each other services. Waste Management had lots of former Arthur Andersen employees which also led to close ties between two companies. That situation undoubtedly led to inability to turn down fraudulent accounting practices Waste Management was exercising at that time for a long period of time.

There were many issues in this case but one of the main issues that stood out was the fact that Andersen there was a conflict of interest because Andersen was the auditor and consultant for Enron. There are positive attributes when auditing and consulting at the same time for a client such as building a relationship with the client and promotes business; allows the auditor to become familiar with the clients’ business environment, and reduces the overall cost of the client. However, when a firm audits and consults for their client, the audit/consulting firm works so closely to the client that it makes ethical decisions very difficult to make and the auditors lose objectivity and become partial due to the conflict of interest.

The lack of independence for external auditors will lead to the neglect of auditing risks (William R.K., 2003), which are the main reasons for the failure of certified accountants and professional accounting organizations. The consequence of the external auditors deprived of independence would be very serious. And there are many cases, which aroused by the failure of external auditors and most are related to the lack of independence. One famous example is the bankruptcy of Enron and the role played by its external auditor, Arthur Andersen (Todd, S., 2003). Arthur Andersen was once one of the biggest accounting companies in the world, and was canceled for the involvement in the Enron bankruptcy scandal.