I suspect it will come not as a surprise to readers of Compliance Week involved in public company reporting that external audit fees continue to rise for a majority of Securities and Exchange Commission registrants.
The 2015 Audit Fee Report issued in October by the Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF) reported that median external audit fees increased by 3 percent, 3.5 percent, and 3.4 percent in 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively. That outpaces the rise in the producer price index, which rose less than 2 percent in each of these years. Increased audit fees were experienced by a majority of the 7,000-8,000 public companies that report their audit fees in SEC filings.
