The recent spate of revelations about the recklessness with which that famed profession, the independent auditor, has chosen to conduct itself have clearly eroded trust in it altogether. This raises the question of how it managed to descend into the crisis of credibility it finds itself in. Many would think it displays an infantile understanding of what constitutes sound corporate governance, and one should therefore perhaps not have expected anything better. However, it is with the concept of independence that these behemoth audit firms seem to create fertile ground for the disasters they now have to deal with. While the term "independent" is frequently heard in association with "auditor" and "director", it is perplexing that very little such independence is evident in the boards of audit firms. These boards are largely constituted of partners or executives of the audit firm in question and any "independence" that is there appears to be mainly "good governance" window-dressing. How...
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