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RECORTES DE IMPRENSA R
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(Continuação da página 23) whether it’s Enron or Waste Management, you find in- S
stances where they’ve had the same auditor for, in some T
and analysed hundreds of cases involving what they de- cases, decades’, said Bárbara Roper, head of investor A
termined to be audit failures’, he said. PCAOB plans to protection for the Consumer Federation of America.
release a discussion paper on how auditors can be ‘in- D
sulated’ from client pressure.” Auditors might be inclined to perform tougher audits if E
they know their work will be checked when their term
ends and a new audit firm comes in, said Lynn Turner, C
Accountancy, July 2011
head of a PCAOB sub-committee that recommended O
mandatory rotation. N
T
Auditor links in spotlight A
Rotation could also take pressure off auditors, who would B
not have to worry as much about losing their firms’
“Goldman Sachs has had the same auditing firm since I
1926, Coca-Cola since 1921, General Electric since 1909 longest-standing clients, he said. L
and Procter & Gamble since 1890. That is going back 85, I
90, 102 and 121 years. Switching audit firms frequently would be disruptive, said D
Scott Magnuson, senior principal at GHP Horwath. ‘To do A
a good audit, an auditor has to really have a good, de- D
Each has relied on a different one of what are known
today as the Big Four accounting firms. But now some tailed understanding of what that client does, and a lot of E
that knowledge is cumulative’, he said.
US accounting reformers think the time has come to ro- E
tate auditing firms.
Switching auditors also may be difficult for large firms as
only the Big Four auditors - Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and F
Broached at a meeting of the US Public Company Ac- I
counting Oversight Board (PCAOB) in March, mandatory Ernst & Young - have the resources to audit big multina- N
tionals, - Reuters.”
auditor rotation is expected in a ‘concept release’ due A
soon from the board, which seeks tougher, more inde- N
pendent audits. Sunday Times, August 7, 2011 Ç
A
While the partner on an accounting job must be switched S
every five years, there are no term limits on the audit Sensibilidade e bom senso
N.º
firms themselves - a policy that has left intact long-term 106
client relationships and raised questions about inde- “…
pendence.
6. Para cumprir a tradição mais um fundo de pensões é
‘It’s not to say that anyone who has had the same audi- transferido para a Segurança Social para tapar o buraco.
tor 20 years or longer is corrupt, or the auditor is not doing Depois da PT, CTT, ANA, CGD, é agora a vez de se pro-
what they should be doing’, said Mark Grote, analyst at cessar paulatinamente a transferência dos fundos de
Glass Lewis, an investment research firm. Yet after 50 pensões da banca. As responsabilidades relativas a pen-
years ‘there’s no way you could think the auditor is re- sões são a chamada dívida implícita, pois não contam
maining as sceptical as a new auditor coming in’, he said. para a dívida pública, mas são dívida. 33
‘They’re almost an outsourced part of the accounting de-
partment’. Aquilo que deve preocupar os portugueses é se as re-
ceitas imediatas que se obtêm são actuariamente justas,
Strong opposition is expected from the audit industry, isto é equivalentes às responsabilidades futuras. Porque
which could be forced to surrender lucrative clients under se forem inferiores estaremos a pagar o diferencial em
mandatory auditor rotation. impostos ao longo dos anos.
J
A rule change is far from certain. The board has yet to À semelhança do que existe nos Estados Unidos o Go- u
issue a concept release; that would have to be followed verno deveria criar o Gabinete do Actuário da Segurança l
by a proposed rule and then a final rule, which would Social que reportasse sobre estas transferências e ana- h
have to be approved by the Securities and Exchange lisasse a sustentabilidade do sistema. Os seus relatórios o
Commission. deveriam ser escrutinados por actuários independentes.
/
About 175 companies in the S&P 500 index have had the …” S
same auditor for 25 years or more, according to Audit An- e
alytics. Seven companies have had the same auditor for Paulo Trigo Pereira, Público, 14 de Agosto de 2011 t
over a century. e
m
b
Ultra-long auditor stints have for years been a concern to As palavras sábias de Warren Buffett r
investor groups. Entrenched audit firms were linked to big o
financial frauds of the past. “Warren Buffett voltou a propor o que, para a maioria dos
que têm muito dinheiro, é uma loucura - aumentar os im- 2
0
‘When you look at big audit failures over the years, postos aos ‘megaricos’ (a expressão é sua). Não é a pri- 1
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