Cruising around el Twittero this morning, we came across something interesting shared by Francine McKenna:
Which auditor has most China fraud problems? Deloitte by a landslide. RT @chinajinrong: @retheauditors tradingfloor.com/posts/china-fi…
— Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) May 29, 2013
This post by Fredrik Oqvist, founder of China RAI, has a table that shows which audit firms have had the biggest auditing trouble in little China and the results are pretty striking:
Jesus. Remember Frazer Frost? That brings back some memories.
But as you can see, Deloitte runs away with it. According to this list, Deloitte has more "occurrences" of fraud or other accounting issues in China than the three other Big 4 firms combined.
Here's Oqvist discussing the story behind the numbers:
This data is a bit different from what was published last time [check Oqvist's post from last year], as it focuses particularly on the US-listed firms, much like what the PCAOB is likely to do. This means that Sino-forest is not included, nor is the recent accusations against Zoomlion or other Hong Kong listed companies.I cannot guarantee that the list is absolutely exhaustive. For instance what is deemed serious enough to classify as a legitimate fraud accusation is somewhat discretionary. However, with 158 companies on the list it offers good guidance for firms that might be more likely to have papers reviewed by the PCAOB, and thus where there might be more risk.