審計醜聞對“四大”提出嚴肅考驗
From the shambles of the Oscars ceremony to the more serious matters of US lawsuits and UK regulatory investigations, it has been a difficult year for PwC. Its rival KPMG is hardly faring better. The Big Four accountancy firm was castigated by Senator Elizabeth Warren for failing to spot dubious practice at the lender Wells Fargo. Now its auditing of Rolls-Royce is under investigation in the UK after the engineering company admitted bribery and corruption offences going back 20 years.
從奧斯卡(Oscars)頒獎禮上的烏龍到更爲嚴肅的美國訴訟和英國監管機構調查問題，普華永道(PwC)這一年過得不輕鬆。其競爭對手畢馬威(KPMG)的日子也沒好到哪裏去。因未能發現富國銀行(Wells Fargo)的可疑行爲，這家全球四大會計師事務所之一受到參議員伊麗莎白?沃倫(Elizabeth Warren)的嚴厲指責。如今，畢馬威對羅爾斯?羅伊斯公司(Rolls-Royce)的審計工作正在英國接受調查，此前，這家工程公司承認了可追溯至20年前的行賄和腐敗罪行。These scandals are not on the grand scale of the Enron fraud, which led to Arthur Andersen’s demise. Yet they highlight the failure of the accountancy profession and its regulators to resolve, in the intervening 15 years, the fundamental question of how far auditors should be expected to go in their efforts to uncover bad behaviour.
這些醜聞的規模比不上安然(Enron)欺詐事件，後者導致安達信會計師事務所(Arthur Andersen)覆滅。然而，這些醜聞突顯出，在安然覆滅之後這15年時間裏，會計行業以及監管機構未能解決這個基本問題：審計公司應該在多大程度上努力揭發不當行爲。
The rules require them to “obtain reasonable assurance” that accounts are “free of material misstatement”. This leaves considerable scope for interpretation. Auditors should be on the lookout for fraud, as well as innocent error, and are expected to conduct checks to try to detect it, especially in areas that account for a significant proportion of a company’s balance sheet.
規定要求審計機構“有適度的把握”財務報表“沒有重大虛假陳述”。這一表述爲不同解讀留下了巨大空間。審計機構應提防欺詐行爲以及無心之過，並應該進行覈查，以努力發現欺詐行爲，特別是在佔一家公司資產負債表重大比例的領域。
However, auditors have always argued that it is not their job to pursue evidence of wrongdoing, second guess management or find out when they are being lied to. An audit will never have the rigour of a forensic investigation — at least, not unless companies pay significantly higher fees.
然而，審計機構一直主張，追查不當行爲的證據、猜測管理層想法或者查實客戶公司何時撒謊，並非它們的職責。審計工作從來不是嚴格的司法調查，至少，除非客戶公司支付高得多的費用，否則審計機構不會這麼做。What is clear is that there is a wide gap between auditors’ own idea of how far their responsibilities stretch and the expectations of investors and the general public. The creditors of failed companies are increasingly inclined to hold their auditors responsible. The accountancy firms are predictably reluctant to see these questions tested in court — judging by PwC’s settlement of the lawsuits brought against it by the administrators of the failed mortgage lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, and the failed broker MF Global. This is regrettable. Greater clarity is needed on the scope of auditors’ responsibilities — and on the costs this may entail.
顯然，審計機構認爲自己負有的責任，與投資者和普通大衆期待它們擔負的責任之間，有着巨大差距。破產公司的債權人越來越傾向於要求審計機構承擔責任。可以想見，審計機構不願讓這些問題在法庭上見分曉，這一點從如下事例中就可以看出來：破產了的抵押貸款機構Taylor、 Bean & Whitaker和經紀商MF Global的破產受託人對普華永道提起訴訟，而普華永道就這些訴訟達成了和解。這令人遺憾。我們需要更加明確審計機構的責任範圍，以及由此可能需要的費用。A larger question, though, is whether the structure of the industry encourages cosiness between auditors and the companies they scrutinise.
然而，一個更重要的問題是，審計行業的結構是否鼓勵了審計機構與被審計公司互相通融。Recent efforts to bolster auditors’ independence have been timid. Limits on the cross-selling of non-audit services need tightening. New EU rules require companies to switch auditor only after 20 years, yet even this presents difficulties: in an oligopoly of four, companies can struggle to switch even when they wish to, since rivals are often selling them other services.
最近加強審計機構獨立性的措施顯得有些缺乏膽量。需要加強對交叉銷售非審計服務的限制。新的歐盟規定要求公司每20年更換審計機構，甚至這也帶來了難題：在全球四大會計師事務所的壟斷下，公司可能很難更換審計機構，即便它們希望這麼做，因爲競爭對手經常會向它們銷售其他服務。Four big firms is clearly not a large enough field to guarantee healthy competition. Opening up the ownership of auditing firms may yet be the only way to restore the sector’s reputation.
全球只有四大會計師事務所，顯然無法保證健康競爭。開放審計機構所有權或許是挽回該行業聲譽的唯一方式。
