Well, I was just a suit drone into one of their 100 little IT firm around the world. The nearest I got to an actual AA associate was during a 1 month project in Chicago (: Wasted my time really... They billed 3 months to their clients, for a project that took 1 month, and I was asked to fill the cubicle for 2 month doing nothing. ----- Alain Hebert ahebert@pubnix.net PubNIX Inc. 50 boul. St-Charles P.O. Box 26770 Beaconsfield, Quebec H9W 6G7 Tel: 514-990-5911 http://www.pubnix.net Fax: 514-990-9443 On 05/01/14 18:43, Owen DeLong wrote:
Care to comment on how you feel about the COI that developed between AA Consulting business at Enron and AA auditing Enron?
Not asking you to disclose anything confidential, but if you have wisdom to impart about any sort of generic lessons learned, etc. that might be relevant to this discussion, I think that could be useful.
Owen
On May 1, 2014, at 12:56 PM, Alain Hebert <ahebert@pubnix.net> wrote:
Hey,
I worked for them (AA) in the early 90's =D
----- Alain Hebert ahebert@pubnix.net PubNIX Inc. 50 boul. St-Charles P.O. Box 26770 Beaconsfield, Quebec H9W 6G7 Tel: 514-990-5911 http://www.pubnix.net Fax: 514-990-9443
On 05/01/14 14:07, John Souter wrote:
The problem with this theory is that if auditors can be so easily put to the street, you run into the risk of auditors altering behavior to increase customer satisfaction in ways that prevent them from providing the controls that are the reason auditors exist in the first place. I disagree. And the power balance is generally tilted way in favour of
On 01/05/14 17:41, Owen DeLong wrote: the auditors, as many people on this thread have already commented. In my experience, most companies are afraid/inhibited to raise issues or challenge their auditors in any way. Nobody is asking auditors to roll over, but if their behaviour is unprofessional/illogical, then a short sharp shock should do the trick.
If you don’t believe me, examine the history of Arthur Anderson and their relationship with a certain Houston-based company which failed spectacularly. Can't really comment, but it was financial auditing, and ISTR that many things failed in that situation - not just financial auditing.
John