In: Accounting
Scenario: The firm of Abernethy and Chapman was asked to do consulting work for the Lakeside company that is completely separate and unrelated to the audit of the financial statements. Discuss the potential conflict of interest when an auditor does consulting work for an audit client. Does this relationship cause the independence of the auditor to be violated? Why or why not? Since the Enron debacle, how has the accounting profession dealt with this issue?
It is very important for an auditor to maintain its independence during the course of audit. The importance is derived from the fact that any relationship between the auditor and his client should not influence his opinion on the financial statements of the client entity.
The case of Enron imposed several allegation on the accounting firm of not acting independently. It was also accused of being involved in the malpractice for continuing their alignment with the auditee company, Enron.
In the very instant case, the firm of Aberthy and Chapman was asked to do consulting work for the audit client.
Yes. There are potential conflict of interests involved in doing so. It can be a possible reason for causing violation to the Auditor entity's Indepence. It could also result into biased audit reports, erroronous reports or unjustified opinion.
It can be prevented by setting up a seperate engagement with the Lakeside Company defining the scope and nature of services to be provided.
In the aftermath of the Enron Case, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was amended to take some stringent steps to bring this malpractice into control. The Board came up with the changes and Sarbanes Oxley delegated the Board with some primary responsibilities being: