The report cleared KPMG and Ernst & Young of any responsibility for the accounting fraud at the company and concluded that the scheme had been too well concealed.
Wall Street analysts and money managers share responsibility for the accounting crisis, said Neil Barsky, managing partner of Midtown Capital Management, a $750 million hedge fund.
When questioned yesterday on the ABC television program "This Week" about expanding the role of his agency, Mr. Pitt said that the commission was already short on resources and could not easily take on direct responsibility for the accounting profession.
"I have mentioned cost as one reason the S.E.C. should not have immediate and direct regulatory responsibility for the accounting profession," Mr. Pitt said in an address before the Securities Regulation Institute, a group of corporate lawyers and securities experts.
Ahold has dismissed two of Mr. Miller's subordinates and said they bore some of the responsibility for the accounting problems; the company said that its investigation was continuing.
Satyam's CEO, Ramalingam Raju, took responsibility for broad accounting improprieties that overstated the company's revenues and profits and reported a cash holding of approximately $1.04 billion that simply did not exist.
According to Olympus, eight executives including Takayama were to take pay cuts of between 30 and 50 percent starting December, to take responsibility for the accounting scandal; Takayama's salary would be halved.
Many times the person responsible for the initial sales takes responsibility for ongoing account support.
WPP, for instance, has won global responsibility for the accounts of HSBC and Samsung.
