The government's auditors cleared both firms to work on government contracts in January this year as the police inquiries continued.
A lawsuit against former top Lehman Brothers executives, directors and auditors cleared a major hurdle on Wednesday, as a federal judge largely rejected a bid to dismiss the case.
This week, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which regulates audit firms in the United States, issued an "audit practice alert" that made clear it was concerned that American auditors were now — like Japanese auditors in the past — too willing to believe whatever management said.
Last week Chancellor Gordon Brown, chairing talks between EU finance ministers, made clear it was for the auditors to set out ways to improve the procedures for clearing the accounts.
Key findings in the report, published on Monday, included: "Negligent trustees" repeatedly ignored auditors' clear warnings about the precarious finances of the charity.
That, as Mr. Crumbo explained, made the orchestra's debt come due immediately, though it was clear that it did not have the means to pay it, which contributed to the auditors' doleful conclusion.
For example, in fire safety, the company added more escape routes and cleared choke points after the auditors asked it to test the evacuation of buildings during shift change, when plants are most crowded.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act allowed both the S.E.C. and the board to discipline public auditors, and it is not clear how they plan to divide the responsibility.
Indeed it is on his auditor's clear comprehension of the different manners in which the same events can be told that his entire upcoming rationale for excluding certain kinds of poetry from the ideal city will depend.
WorldCom fired its auditor, Andersen, after it was discredited by the Enron affair; internal auditors uncovered the fraud and alerted KPMG, the new external auditors.
It'll take another year to clear through the system".
