GT Chief: U.S. Needs Counterpart to U.K. Audit Study

Maintaining that auditor concentration and litigation issues erect barriers to better pricing and service, Grant Thornton chief executive Ed Nusbaum called for the U.S. to undertake a comprehensive study on the domestic audit sector. More specifically, Nusbaum said the U.S. needs to produce a similar study to the one released this week in the U.K., "Financial Reporting Council's Market Participants' Group," which examined concentration and choice in the U.K. audit market. "In addition to the fear of one of the large accounting firms failing, there is no question that audit concentration, along with uncontrolled litigation exposure, is undermining the U.S. economic business model that served so well for so many years: More accounting firms means greater competition and increases quality and lowers costs to the end user," said Nusbaum. "We need a similar U.S. auditor concentration study with accompanying action steps to address the issue."