All of the association's more than 240 member airlines must meet audit standards to maintain membership.

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The inspections were performed under GAAS, the AICPA audit standards, since the broker-dealers whose audits that were reviewed are not public companies.

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Our professional skepticism has to be that without strong audit standards and a strong duty of care and a strong sense of clarity about what auditors do we have to be skeptical that management and financial statement preparers will provide the information voluntarily or be willing to acknowledge the significance of the information.

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You typically see the AICPA consulting standards cited when an audit firm performs technology consulting engagements that blow-up.

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The Concept Release on Requiring the Engagement Partner to Sign the Audit Report is still on the PCAOB standards setting docket.

FORBES: Auditors and Audit Reports: Is The Firm's "John Hancock" Enough?

Regulations supporting effective disclosure, as well as improved audit, accounting and risk-rating standards, should be preferred to restrictive regulatory controls that block innovation and growth.

FORBES: Magazine Article

That type of financial relationship between an auditor and its audit client - or between an auditor and a vendor to its audit client - is prohibited by auditor independence standards except in limited circumstances.

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The changes that will have to occur to bring the audit firms, and their clients, in line may mean not only consolidation of audit firms that can not deliver audit-only services cost effectively and per the standards, but also consolidation of broker-dealers who do not want hire competent accounting and systems professionals in-house or pay for it separately from a firm other than their auditor.

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"It's very important not to expect too much from the social audit, " Mr. Berzau said, although he added standards would be lower without any independent checks.

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Until the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed after Enron, the audit industry was self-regulating and established its own professional standards, enforced only via peer reviews.

FORBES: Judge Kaplan: Ernst & Young Must Defend Lehman Investor Lawsuit

Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, co-sponsored what they called a compromise package of safety standards for those Mexican trucks, including a safety audit for each truck firm before a U.S. operating certificate is granted, more scales and U.S. inspectors at the U.S-Mexican border crossings, and a requirement for Mexican truckers to comply with U.S. hours-of-service rules.

CNN: truck

This regulatory oversight, supplemented by private liability deemed appropriate under local law, provides powerful incentives for audit firms to comply with, and even exceed, applicable professional standards.

FORBES: Auditors Abandon Investors On Liability Limits

Auditors have traditionally opposed individual partner signatures for audit reports arguing the engagement partner is already known to the client audit committees and partners already hold themselves accountable to their own own high standards of professionalism and accountability.

FORBES: Auditors and Audit Reports: Is The Firm's "John Hancock" Enough?

Auditing standards require PwC to review all of these activities as part of their annual audit.

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Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, would require companies to prove to the government that minimum security standards are in place, and would make that information subject to a government audit.

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The NAO's Comptroller said he had also qualified his audit opinion because the department's accounting policies were not fully compliant with International Financial Reporting Standards.

BBC: Watchdog refuses to sign off 'problematic' MoD accounts

Although Dunn knew nothing about DeLia, she had a high regard for the ethical standards of Wayman and his subordinates, which she had observed as chairman of the audit committee.

NEWYORKER: The Kona Files