How to clean up dirty Big Four: ‘Let investors choose auditors’

EDINBURGH — The Big Four audit firms – KPMG, EY, Deloitte and PwC – have been hit by repeated waves of scandal over several years, yet they continue to rake in juicy fees by milking big corporates through a variety of professional services fees. The authorities in the UK are trying to figure out how to get these global beasts to clean up their act without unsettling markets. Accountancy Age reports that a legal expert reckons the answer is to get investors to choose auditors, rather than allow companies to choose the auditors who will check up on them. This makes a lot of sense; for now, it is a case of the fox guarding the hen house. – Jackie Cameron

By Thulasizwe Sithole

The only way to solve the crisis of confidence in Big Four auditors is to empower investors to choose firms. That's according to John Coffee, Professor of Law at Columbia University, who was speaking at an ICAEW conference looking at financial scandals past and present.

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