Two more Big 4 firms took new criticism from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board after the board published 2012 inspection reports for KPMG and PwC.
KPMG got a failing grade on 17 of 50 audits inspected by the PCAOB for an overall failure rate of 34 percent, up from a 22.60-percent failure rate in 2011. PwC took heat for 21 of 54 audits inspected for a rate of 38.9 percent, down only barely from last year’s rate of 41.3 percent. Among the Big 4, EY turned in the worst rate of 2012 at 48 percent while Deloitte fared the best at 25 percent. Deloitte is the only Big 4 firm to register a significant improvement from 2011 to 2012, perhaps explaining what PCAOB member Jeannette Franzel meant when she said recently the board is seeing “limited improvement” in inspection results.
