Auditors are supposed to keep businesses honest, but how much regulation is the optimum for the auditors – and how onerous and punitive should the enforcement regime be? A new consultation by the U.K. regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, opened on Oct. 1 and has put the vexed question of audit regulation back in the spotlight.
Accounting & Auditing
PCAOB’s Christina Ho: How emerging technologies could reshape improve audit quality
Emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data analytics, can improve audit quality in significant ways. As the regulatory overseer of public-company audits, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has a critical role to play by ensuring that its audit standards evolve as the audit profession evolves.
Williams leaves PCAOB four years before her term was supposed to end
Continuing a Trump administration practice of firing independent regulators, the head of the Public Accounting Oversight Board has been sent packing.
Communication and relationships is increasingly critical for compliance teams
Compliance is increasingly in the spotlight as companies are tackling everything from artificial intelligence and other new technologies to risk management and mitigation. But it’s soft skills of communication and relationship building that are becoming the most critical tools for success.
A lot of us are misusing AI at work, and it’s putting our companies’ data, reputations at risk
Almost half of employees in a new global survey admitted to improperly using AI at work, underscoring the risks companies face by the fast-growing technology. And that’s despite many of their efforts to slow its use.
New York, California will require companies to report greenhouse gas emissions
Some companies doing business in California and New York may soon be required to report the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of their operations to state authorities, even as the federal rule for disclosing such emissions is on life support.
FRC fines PwC, auditor combined $4.1M over 2019 work of Wyelands Bank
The U.K. Financial Reporting Council issued penalties against PwC and a former auditor over deficiencies on work related to the 2019 financial statements of now shuttered Wyelands Bank.
FRC launches probe into MacIntyre Hudson’s 2022 audit of collapsed LSG
The U.K. Financial Reporting Council has launched an investigation into MacIntyre Hudson’s audit of collapsed construction company ISG Limited, which abruptly entered administration in September, laying off 2,200 workers.
PCAOB fines KPMG units $3.4M, PwC Singapore $1.5M for audit, independence violations
Nine affiliates of KPMG agreed to pay a total of nearly $3.4 million for alleged violations of audit and quality control standards, while PwC Singapore will pay $1.5 million to settle separate allegation that the firm manipulated independence compliance reporting.
Experts explain why IIA’s new global audit rules will be ‘central’ to securing high-quality assurance
Compliance teams should expect more support from their organization’s internal audit functions. That is the clear message from the Institute of Internal Auditors, the global body of national affiliated internal audit institutes, which has just put into action its new Global Internal Audit Standards.


