The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the regulator for accounting firms in the US, disclosed on Friday that for the second year, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited had not corrected flaws in its audit procedures. The regulator had called out Deloitte in a 2009 inspection about certain important issues that the firm need to address. The regulator added in its statement on Friday that regardless of the cautionary advice it had dispensed to Deloitte, the company failed to fix the problems that the former saw in the accounting firm.
However, PCAOB gave credit to Deloitte's efforts in response to the former's inspections in 2010 and 2011.
Deloitte chief executive officer Joe Echevarria and audit business Greg Weaver released a joint statement, which read, "We believe the P.C.A.O.B.'s determinations concerning our remediation of the quality control criticisms" in the 2009 and 2010 inspection reports "are reflective of the significant progress we have made toward the achievement of our audit quality objectives in more recent years."
The statement released by the accounting regulator was more friendly in tone as compared to PCAOB's earlier annual review of Deloitte in 2009. After PCAOB released the first part of its report, Deloitte showed force by signing its response statement as that of the firm's and not of an individual. Deloitte's statement then also challenged several points that the PCAOB had raised in its annual review.
Sarbanes Oxley Act, of which the creation of the PCAOB sprung forth from the statute, would put all accounting firms under a review each year, and that a report would be released regarding deficiencies seen in the audits the board has conducted. However, the report's second part would be kept in secret unless the accounting firm that was being observed had not taken action to the problems the board had identified.
Deloitte is one of the big four firms in the US. The other two, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young had secret reports revealed to the public. No secret report on KPMG's audit had not been released so far.
Deloitte saw its revenues increased to USD32.41 billion in 2013. As of this year, it employs 203,000 personnel all over the world.
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