Why? Apparently because they just considered the needs of auditors. Audit committee members were feeling left out (and are, presumably, just as uncomfortable conversing with humans as auditors) so it’s back to the drawing board:
At a July 15 meeting of the PCAOB’s Standing Advisory Group, Goelzer said comments reflected a wide range of views. “A number of comments suggested that we needed to do more homework, more outreach on this subject,” he said. “Some thought we approached the subject too much from the perspective of the auditor and without a full appreciation of what audit committee members wanted or needed.”
Maybe not in so many words but this whole PricewaterhouseCoopers/Yukos situation has got some people wondering. The FT and the Wall St. Journal both published articles yesterday about the Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev trial that is close (?) to wrapping up after 18 months. The two men are accused of embezzling mega bucks from Yukos, the Russian oil company.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev’s lawyers are now claiming that PwC “acted improperly” by withdrawing ten years worth of audits under pressure from the Kremlin. Pressure, the lawyers say, in the form of “a prosecutors’ raid, criminal investigations and a slew of court cases threatened to undermine its ability to operate in the fast-growing Russian market.” Basically, they threatened to throw PwC out of Russia. And it’s pretty difficult to grow your BRIC business without the “R” so PwC pulled the audits.
The firm claims that they up and changed their minds after the prosecutors showed them some evidence that led them to believe that they had been lied to by Yukos management.
Presumably everyone but if you guessed that the Rev had the good sense to hire a crack-squad of debit & credit mavens to keep everything at National Action Network tip-top, you’d be sorely mistaken.
Until the 24th, when GOD KNOWS what happened and D&B’s audit committee up and fired E&Y. They then filed the amended S-4, letting the whole world know about it:
This man thinks highly of you you're acceptable, KPMG
And you know he’s not messin’ because that’s what he told Charlie Gasparino and God knows you best not lie to the Fox Business Network’s ace reporter. Sure Bové didn’t actually say “KPMG” (hell, he’s probably never heard the name) but he’s giving credit to auditors which is about as unheard of as Tiger Woods using Trojans with hookers.
Bové may have mentioned some other things about Mike Mayo, Citi, Deferred Tax Assets so on and so forth but we’re sure you’re not worried about that.
Attorneys from Houston’s Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Anaipakos are representing a group of investors in a lawsuit filed against hedge fund auditors Ernst & Young after the group lost more than $17 million following the collapse of a Plano, Texas-based hedge fund that promised low-risk investments.
The lawsuit focuses on two funds sold by Plano’s Parkcentral Global and was filed on behalf of Houston financial consultant Gus H. Comiskey and four Tucson, Ariz.-based entities, including the Thomas R. Brown Family Private Foundation. The now-defunct Parkcentral Global was operated by affiliates of billionaire and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot before closing its doors after losing a total of more than $2.6 billion.
“Our clients were told that an investment in Parkcentral was designed to preserve capital. Instead, they lost every penny in record time. E&Y was supposed to be auditing Parkcentral, but the audited financial statements never once warned Parkcentral’s investors of their impending doom,” says attorney Demetrios Anaipakos, who will try the case with Amir H. Alavi.
On Sunday, The Emmys will be handed out to several cast and crew of Mad Men and a few other people. In order to give these proceedings some legitimacy, Ernst & Young partner Andy Sale (and possibly a few others) counts these votes and certify the results.
The L.A. Times published a Q&A with Sale today since the big day is nearly here and we took the liberty of bringing you the highlights.
Fox Business Network’s ace news-breaker Charlie Gasparino reports that Citigroup’s management team, including CEO Vikram Pandit and CFO John Gerspach will not meet with CLSA banking analyst Mike Mayo since he’s been telling investors that the big C should be writing down their $50 billion in deferred tax assets.
Carlito reports that Mayo states that this refusal to write down the DTAs amounts to “cooking the books by inflating its earnings through an accounting gimmick.”
