Global financial crisis

Describe about the Auditing and Assurance for Global Financial Setback.

This report focuses on the potential liabilities of the auditors toward the business enterprises and third party. Auditor liabilities have become an important debate issue for the public after Global Financial Crisis. Global Financial Crisis was a setback for the economy for whole globe, it triggered down the economy in middle of 2007 and in 2008. Global financial crisis affect the business of many large institution and there was a big collapse of the financial institutions. This report also contains the recommendations, that can assist in the controlling the loss of business and third party. 

Global Financial Crisis affected the whole world’s financial institutions, mainly the economy of US (Shefrin and Shaw, 2016). In this purview Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American international group, HBOS and many large institutions had collapsed. Lehman Brothers collapsed due to many reasons such as, Credit Default Swaps, misrepresentations of financial statements and unethical behavior of the executives. Notably, the auditors were negligent to perform her duties properly. Moreover, Lehman Brother used the 105 Repo to show the financial position healthy than the real position. Ernst and Young did not disclose the impact of the 105 Repo, to the government, investors and creditors.

On the other hand, HBOS a banking and insurance institution in UK. It was also failed, at the time commercial real estate business was on peak and their quality of lending was not appropriate. The HBOS plc was unable to meet the liability. The underlying balance sheet of HBOS was very weak due to the crisis of financial system and the banking staffs not have the professional skills that can handle the financial mismanagement of auditing.

Auditor in the company is as a pillar which shapes the businesses financial strength through directing the company account. Auditor’s liabilities can be defined as the responsibility of accountants to maintain the company account and relationship with third party (Gay and Simnett, 2015). Liabilities stated as the responsibilities of auditor toward the assessment of the account handling. The liabilities of the auditors have been increased for the purpose of controlling the financial inclusion of the business. Auditors play an important role in internal control in the business through managing the financial stability of the business.

Auditor’s common law liability arises due to the fraud, breach of contract and negligence when an auditor does not performs his duty as per the contract rules and regulations. These liabilities arise due to the common behavior and statutory legality obligation. The common liabilities are as follows-

Auditor’s liabilities under law

Negligence liabilities

Negligence Liabilities arises in the situation when an auditor acts negligibly and it leads to the loss for a business (Leung and Coram, 2012 ). In many situations where accountant fails to use their skills and professional care for the business organization to handle the business accounts, it leads to the negligence of liability of auditors. Furthermore, if any negligence liability occurs, auditor is liable for the loss of company’s financial positions. Moreover, this liability may occur due to the misunderstanding regarding the duties assumed by the auditors. In recent years many cases arises against the auditors for the claim for loss.

Criminal and civil offence liabilities

Auditors are potentially liable for the criminal and civil offense. These liabilities arises when an auditor demolish the government rules and regulation, that need to be followed for a better financial management.

Criminal offence is a crime against the state law, when auditor breakdown the legal rules relating to liability (Gibson and Fraser, 2013). In context of criminal offence an auditor present the false report, balance sheet and financial statements of the firm, than third party can sue for claim the loss.  In this regard auditors mislead or deceptive practices of auditing for organizations occurred, it resulted into the loss for business.

Moreover, large money is lost by the creditors and investors due to the misstatement regarding the shares and debentures, it comes under the civil liability for the auditors to present the actual listing of shares and debentures. Auditors are liable to perform as they contract with the firm, if accountant fails to perform his duty legally firm can sue against the auditors to breach the contract. This is the legal liability of auditors and firm can oblige to act according the terms of contract. Under the contract law innocent party can seek for damages.

Liability of misrepresentations

Auditor is liable for the tort with the audit of account. Auditor cannot distort the financial statement of the company (Latimer, 2012). Auditor’s duty is to present the real picture of the company’s financial position through which investors and shareholder can take the decision to invest in the institutions. On the other hand, creditors, shareholder and investors suffer the loss due the auditor’s report of financial statements, auditor is liable to pay the loss amount to the third party.

Proportionate liabilities

Proportionate liability of the auditors can promote the competition in the market. It is stated regarding the proportionate liability, the auditors would be liable for the actual loss of shareholder. The Australian model explained that an auditor cannot exempt from the liability in course of the blame by the shareholders. Major Australian state set the maximum liability of auditors ten times of fee.  

Negligence liabilities

In the global financial crisis of 2007 many financial institutions collapsed a short time after unqualified audit reports were given by the auditors. This is a serious issue. An auditor’s report is an integral part of the financial statements of a company disclosed to public. The unqualified audit report by an auditor means that the auditor is conveying that the financial statements of the company are showing a true and fair picture of the financial position of the company and all the generally accepted accounting principles as required by the regulating authority have been followed in the preparation of the financial statements (Australian Securities And Investments Commission, 2016). The unqualified opinion of the auditor also means that the auditor agrees with the accounting policies and methods of treatment of accounting entries followed by the business enterprise. An auditor can be prosecuted under the criminal law of Australia for knowingly or recklessly including misleading, false or deceptive matters in an audit report. In other words an auditor can be held liable for knowingly giving a wrong audit opinion (Accaglobal.com, 2016). 

In a case relating to Ernst and Young, an auditing firm, a law suit was filed by the New York attorney general against the firm for helping Lehman Brothers, a bank, in misleading investors by hiding material information from them (Reuters.com, 2016). Ernst and Young were auditors of Lehman Brothers. The auditing firm used unfair methods to make debts disappear from the financial statements of Lehman Brothers. These liabilities were not shown in the balance sheet presenting a much better financial position of Lehman Brothers than it actually was. Ernst and Young settled the law suit by agreeing to pay an amount of ten million dollars.

Many of the financial institutions including banks which collapsed as a result of the global financial crisis did not record all their assets and liabilities in their financial statements. Moreover, assets were shown by some of the banks at much higher values than their actual values. Many companies made use of financial derivatives to conceal their losses and true risks involved in their business transactions. The internal auditors of these companies had also failed in their duties. There seemed to be complete lack of corporate governance. In several cases the directors and senior management had supported fraudulent practices  (Soh and Bennie, 2011).

It is the duty of the auditor to ensure that the company shows all its assets in the financial statements. In a case where officials of a business enterprise do not reveal all assets owned by it in its accounting records as per Australian accounting standards which meet the requirements of International Financial Reporting Standards and misappropriate assets of the organization, then it is an example of a fraud. An auditor is expected to report the fraud to the relevant authorities. But if there is a case where the auditor has failed to do so and the auditor argues that it was not able to detect the fraud, then, it is considered by law if the auditor had put into action competently an audit plan which had reasonable possibility of detecting a fraud. In other words there should be no case of negligence on the part of the auditor in deciding the scope and performing the audit with due care.

Criminal and civil offence liabilities

In a legal case in Australia the judge Moffitt J observed in Pacific Acceptance Corporation v. Forsyth (1970) 92 WN (NSW) 29 at 65): ‘If fraud has taken place and is undetected by the auditor he is blameworthy in the eyes of the law [but] only so far as he has been negligent in determining the scope and character of his examination’ (Serperlaw.com, 2016)

It has to be understood that an auditor is expected by Australian Law to act as a skilled inquirer while performing the audit. The auditor is expected to study documents of the company and take samples. The provisions of section 50 of Corporation Act are used to determine whether the auditor took sufficient care in carrying out the audit or there has been a breach of duty by the auditor.

So far as valuation of assets of a company is considered, an auditor is expected to arrive at a range of possible values for a particular asset and then see the estimated value of the asset as arrived at by the company falls within the range of values chosen by the auditor. If there are material uncertainties with regard to the valuation of an asset then the auditor is required to make an emphasis of matter in the auditor’s report. The auditor is expected to make use of the individual’s professional experience and skill in estimating the value of an asset (Caanz, 2016). Sometimes there is lot of subjectivity or uncertainty involved in making accounting estimates, which can be described as inherent limitations of an audit. The auditor is expected to mention risks related to audit in the auditor’s report. The auditor is expected to have knowledge of the business of the company it is auditing and also know about the particular industry and the company customers.

But an auditor is not expected to predict accurately what would be the market price of an asset owned by a company in future. The auditor’s work is primarily related to give opinion regarding the financial statements which are records of the past business transactions of the company.

The quality of work being done by the auditors over the years has been questioned by many people. The collapse of companies like Allco, Westpoint, Centro, Storm financial, Opes Prime and Babcock and Brown in Australia has put renewed focus on the allegations of negligence by auditors of certain companies in carrying out their duties (Kordamentha.com, 2016). There are creditors and suppliers who have done business with a company on the basis of the information given in the audited financial statements and auditor’s report relating to that organization (Chung et al., 2010). If that company becomes insolvent after sometime, these creditors and suppliers would not be paid their money owed by the particular company. In this case these parties have suffered a loss due to the inefficiency and negligence of auditors.

Liability of misrepresentations

 It is assumed that a company would continue to be in business for coming years. This is known as the assumption of going concern. Where a company faces huge risks including a liquidity crunch, which are likely to lead to closure of the company in the near future, then it is the duty of the directors of the company to mention this in an assessment which is part of the financial statements (Taylor, Tower and Neilson, 2010). The auditors are required by Australian auditing standards to review this assessment by directors and mention in their audit report whether there is existence of material uncertainty that puts in danger the company’s going concern status (Xu et al., 2013). If the directors have failed to make a right assessment about the company’s going concern status then the auditor should not give an unqualified audit opinion but would give an adverse opinion. If the auditor fails to mention material uncertainty that would lead to company ceasing to be a going concern then it is a case of negligence by the auditors. In the case of global crisis some of the companies became insolvent. It would be considered by law if the auditor of the company knew about material uncertainties surrounding the existence of the companies as a going concern and if they were mentioned by the auditor in auditor’s report.

In the case of some banks that became insolvent after the global financial crisis, there seem to be inadequate internal controls. These banks made rash investments without proper risk analysis (Taylor, Tower and Neilson, 2010). Loans were advanced to people by banks for buying houses even when these people did not have the ability to pay interest to banks on such loans. Banks bought securities of companies which were not good. It is the duty of the auditors to also assess the internal control system in an organization during the audit process.

One of the examples of a business failing because of its risky business models is that of Storm Financial (Sydney Morning Herald, 2016). This company performed the role of financial planner for its clients. Storm Financial encouraged its clients to borrow more in order to maximize its fee. But the company did not advise the investors properly that they were putting their funds in highly risky securities. Storm Financial exercised almost negligible control over the investments made by its clients who subsequently lost millions of dollars as their investments sunk. Storm Financial could not pay its creditors an amount of $ 80 million owed by the company.

Proportionate liabilities

In cases where it is found that internal controls were nonexistent or minimal in such banks and the auditors failed to mention this in the audit report and gave a positive audit report, then the auditors would be held liable for negligence by the law. The auditors have failed in their duties if they did not take up the issue of lack of adequate internal controls with the management of these banks especially if they were asked in their contract to assess the internal controls in the banks (Azim, 2012).

Recently, many companies are going  bankrupt reason being negligence and fraud by auditor. On the basis of potential liability it can be recommended that the internal control system of auditing should be managed better because lacking in the internal audit system affects the financial statements of the business. On the other hand, financial institutions should pay attention on the risk analysis of the business. Banks like Lehman Brother collapsed due to the race lending to the borrowers and the auditors did not ensure the associated risk so, it is recommended that auditors should care before the lending to the customer.

Furthermore, the auditing standard of the business should be improved because the standard judge the quality and performance of the account audited by the auditors so, the auditing standard must be set according to the financial reporting standards.

It can also be recommended under the current system of joint and several liabilities, the reforms in proportionate liability should be undertaken for the control on the damages by auditors. Government should follow a systematic regulation of the auditing procedure, consequently it would be a action toward the control of misrepresentations and fraud with the audit report. Auditors should also be trained as per the norms of the audit that can improve skills and duty of care to escape from the errors in accounting.

References

Accaglobal.com (2016) Auditor Liability. Available at: https://www.accaglobal.com/in/en/student/exam-support-resources/professional-exams-study-resources/p7/technical-articles/auditor-liability.html  (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Australian Securities And Investments Commission (2016) Financial Reports. Available at: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/financial-reporting-and-audit/preparers-of-financial-reports/financial-reports/ (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Azim, M. (2012) ‘Corporate Governance Mechanisms And Their Impact On Company Performance: A Structural Equation Model Analysis’, Australian Journal Of Management, [online]. Available at: https://aum.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/07/30/0312896212451032.abstract (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (2011) [online] Available  at:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230687440_The_Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers_Causes_of_Failure_Recommendations_Going_Forward (Accessed: 7 September, 2016) 

Caanz, S. (2016) Auditing And Assurance Handbook 2016 Australia. Australia: John Wiley And Sons.

Chung, J. , Farrar, J. , Puri, P. and Thorne, L. (2010) ‘Auditor Liability To Third Parties After Sarbanes-Oxley: An International Comparison Of Regulatory And Legal Reforms’, Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 19(1) , pp. 66–78, [online]. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1061951809000317?np=y (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

 Gans, J. (2011) Modern Criminal Law Of Australia. Australia: Cambridge University Press.

Gay, G. and Simnett, R. (2015) Auditing and Assurance Services in Australia, Sixth Edition. Australia: McGraw-Hill Education.

Gibson, A. and Fraser, D. (2013) Business Law 2014.

Kordamentha.com (2016) Audit Negligence: Who Is To Blame When It All Goes Wrong. Available at: https://www.kordamentha.com/docs/for-publications/issue2011-04-auditnegligence.pdf?Status=Master (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

 Latimer, p. (2012) Australian Business Law 2012. Australia: CCH Australia Limited. 

Leung, p, Coram, p and Cooper, B.J. (2012) Modern Auditing and Assurance Services. USA: John Wiley and Sons.

Reuters.com (2016) Ernst and Young Settles With N.Y. For $ 10 Million Over Lehman Auditing. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ernst-lehman-bros-idUSKBN0N61SM20150415  (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Serperlaw.com (2016) Liability Of Auditors In The Common Law System: Australian Position. Available at: https://www.serperlaw.com/about-us/publications-and-articles/liability-of-auditors (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Shefrin, H. and Shaw, L. (2016) The Global Financial Crisis and its Aftermath: Hidden Factors in the Meltdown. UK: Oxford University Press.

 Soh, D. and Bennie, N.  (2011) ‘The Internal Audit Function: Perceptions Of Internal Audit Roles, Effectiveness And Evaluation’, Managerial Auditing Journal, 26(7), pp. 605 – 622, [online]. Available at: https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/02686901111151332 (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Sydney Morning Herald (2016) Collapse Of Financial Planner Was Inevitable. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/collapse-of-financial-planner-was-inevitable-20100527-whtv.html (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Taylor, G., Tower, G. and Neilson, J. (2010) ‘Corporate Communication Of Financial Risk’, Accounting & Finance, 50(2), pp.417-446, [online]. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-629X.2009.00326.x/full (Accessed: 8 September 2016). 

Xu, Y. , Carson, E. , Fargher, N. and Jiang, L. (2013) ‘Responses By Australian Auditors To The Global Financial Crisis’, Accounting And Finance , 53(1), pp. 301–338, [online]. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-629X.2011.00459.x/full (Accessed: 8 September 2016).