Audit preparation

The U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council has opened an investigation into Ernst & Young LLP’s auditing of NMC Health Plc, the Middle Eastern hospital operator facing fraud allegations.

EY leads among the largest auditors in the first quarter of 2020.

The auditing profession is responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic by adjusting how it conducts audits, and that’s evident in the Center for Audit Quality, whose CEO, Julie Bell Lindsay, took over the leadership job when the priorities for the profession and the CAQ looked far different.

An independent audit into Wirecard AG concluded that it was unable to obtain the data needed to confirm past revenues, and criticized the payment processor for internal “shortcomings” and unwillingness by its third-party partners to contribute to the report.

KPMG and one of its senior partners have been reprimanded and fined 455,000 pounds ($560,000) for failings in its audit of a U.K. company, the latest sanction against the Big Four auditor in recent years.

A better audit isn’t measured by the number of forms completed.

Existing general auditing standards can and should be complied with, despite difficulties.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is giving firms a pause until May 11, given the difficulties businesses are facing from COVID-19.

Audit firms need to make sure their business makes sense — and that their clients' does, too.

Who are the casualties of the SEC’s aggressive enforcement?