But the big audit firms believe the risks are disproportionate.
This is bringing the strategy shops into competition with the biggest players: the Big Four audit firms.
When it comes to the Big 4 audit firms, the established policy is, Too Few To Fail.
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No Big Four audit firms came but next-tier firms like Grant Thornton, McGladrey and Crowe Horwath sent professionals.
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The same retired Big Four audit partners and former CEOs seem to serve on multiple public company audit committees.
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Deloitte is the top Big Four audit firm donor to the Society.
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Omer and Marjorie K. Shelley - examined more than 7, 000 Big 4 audit client engagements between 2006 through 2010.
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Names of key engagement leaders, especially from the Big Four audit firms.
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No Big 4 audit firms or their partners have been named in the insider trading scandal surrounding the now-defunct hedge fund Galleon Management.
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Some assignments have been made amongst the Big Four audit firms to work on the liquidation outside of the US. Deloitte gets Australia.
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The Big Four dominate the audit of big, listed multinational companies because second-tier firms lack the capacity and the international networks needed for the job.
The firm was no more a bum than any of the other Big 4 audit firms who held on as long as they could to as much additional work and fees from audit clients as they could.
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Why do private private equity firms voluntarily expose themselves to a Big 4 firm audit?
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The European Commission wants to break up the Big Four, splitting their audit and their consulting businesses.
And big accounting firms will refuse to audit financial statements if the company or creditors fail to provide data.
That sounds fine, but the Audit Commission has two big worries.
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In 2012 CMS will perform an audit before paying for several big ticket cardiology and orthopedic procedures in certain key states.
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To be clear, as a British phenomenon it is pretty pronounced phenomenon: in 2009, the Big Four received 100% of all audit fees paid by FTSE100 companies (the UK's largest listed businesses) and 98% of the next tier, the FTSE250 businesses.
It also said it had commissioned an independent audit by one of the "big four accounting firms".
State's big four accounting firm has tried to increase audit fees twice since January, citing extra work to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley.
Many companies even now have only three to choose from, because they buy non-audit services from one of the big four.
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The recent financial crisis presented auditors and, by extension, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act audit reforms, with their first big test since these reforms were put into place.
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More recently though, the National Audit Office found that five of those big settlements had been reasonable.
Some are more dramatic: having auditors appointed by regulators, or stripping out audit firms from the multidisciplinary monsters the Big Four have become.
Companies in the volatile construction business and those on the leading edge of technology might also face higher audit fees or no audits at all, says another big-four partner.
Even with the new cash, SEC officials say it has become difficult to attract accountants in a tight job market, despite the layoffs resulting from the demise of the big five firm (now big four) Arthur Andersen after its federal conviction for destroying Enron audit documents.
Even the outside directors are big owners: Max Bobbitt, a telecoms consultant who chairs WorldCom's audit committee, has nearly half a million shares.
The experience of Deloitte, the first Big Four firm to suffer the ignominy of having the PCAOB air its dirty audit laundry in public may be instructive.
More important, scale matters in the audit of large, multinational companies, which is why the industry consolidated into five big firms in the first place.
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