Back in 1995 I did some research for the Bank Administration Institute of bank auditing costs
You’re talking about, really, a conflict of interest of having a CFO determining his own paycheck by deciding what the numbers that are going to be reported to the public are.
Taking a look at scope of services, I’d ask that perhaps maybe you want to take a look, in view of the interest that you’ve shown, in the numbers of what people are reporting as consulting and auditing.
The SEC Practice Section, I called them. They don’t provide any guidance on what the firms put in thisbudget of accounting and auditing. And really, auditing is almost, kind of, nonexistent nowadays because it’s assurance business advisory services.
Internal auditing out-sourcing, of course, is one of the big items that’s in what they’re calling accounting and auditing, and some others are as well. So it’s the same non-audit services. Perhaps we ought to be looking at non-financial statement audit services, services that aren’t related to the audit of financial statements.
For respondents that had over 3 billion in assets, fees for services other than the annual financial statement audit amounted to more than 60 percent of the audit fee, which I consider to be very significant, not 100 percent, as I think Professor Coffee said he would be disturbed about that.
I guess I forgot in my introduction to also say that now that I’m retired, why I’m an investor, and I’m mad that, you know, Bank One doesn’t seem to get the word on what you’re talking about on big bath adjustments, big bath reserves
For 43 percent of the cases, so more than half —or almost half of the banks were paying back in 1995 more than 60 percent of their audit fee in other services. So I think we ought to be looking at — I disagree with Professor Coffee. We ought to be looking at the profitability of other services that are likely to be much more profitable than just the revenues. We ought to be looking at what their profitability is.
So the bright line, if you choose to have one, inmy view, should be much lower, 10, 15 percent of the audit fee, not any 25, 50 or even 100 percent.
The scope of services issue. I’m sure you’re looking at Microstrategy. I mean, my gosh, that looks to be like a classic case where the partner-in-charge of the office knew what to do, and he didn’t do it.
Now, we’ll never know why he didn’t do it. He didn’t call the national office. The rules say you’ve got to call the national office . He didn’t do it. This is in the New York Times. It’s a very clear article.
So it’s just unreasonable to prove cause and effect like you’re having a laboratory experiment. You’re just not going to show that you can prove one thing or another. I hope my colleagues in the psychology department would agree with that.
A billion, nine. If that isn’t a big bath — and they’re coming out saying, «Oh, yeah. Everything’s going to be great after that because we won’t have to have any bad debt expense.» Sure. Anyway, sorry.
I know you’re busy, but please, I hope you’re looking at Bank One
And another one, Mattell. I lost money on thatone, too, where the whole thrust of the doggone issue is that they relied on faulty financial statements when they bought Learning Corporation, and yet the attorneys aren’t suing the accountants. It’s too hard now.
That’s where I’m agreeing now with Coffee that it’s too hard now because of the new laws. Well, sorry about that.