本文是会计专业的Essay范例，题目是“Conflicts of Interest in Auditing and Consulting（审计与咨询中的利益冲突）”，导致安然丑闻的一个关键问题是，该公司在几年的时间里设法向投资者和分析师提供了误导性的财务信息，显示其年收入约为1000亿美元。然而，一旦显示该公司资产负债表状况的准确数字出现，贷款机构就撤回了资金;证交会加大了对该公司的压力;不到两个月，公司就破产了。斯隆等人(2002)认为，避免此类事件发生的唯一方法是阻止公司提供不诚实的数据，同时让审计师害怕证明任何可能被视为误导的东西。总的来说，审计师的独立性原则应该是指审计师在核实会计数据时要积极和坚决。
Conflicts of interest: how can the provision of consulting and advisory services be consistent with the requirements of auditor independence?利益冲突:咨询和咨询服务的提供如何与审计师独立性的要求保持一致?
One of the key issues identified as a cause of the Enron scandal is that the company managed to provide misleading financial information to investors and analysts over a period of several years, indicating around $100 billion of annual revenues. However, once the accurate numbers emerged showing the state of the company’s balance sheet, lenders withdrew their funding; the SEC increased the pressure on the company; and the company went bankrupt in less than two months. Sloan et al (2002) argue that the only way to avoid such incidents happening is to discourage companies from producing dishonest numbers, whilst making auditors afraid of certifying anything which could be seen as misleading. In general, the principle of auditor independence should mean that auditors are vigorous and unrelenting in their verification of accounting data.
However, in the case of Enron, the auditors: Arthur Andersen, were signing off significant amounts of accounting data from their own consulting arm, who were providing Enron with consulting and advisory services. As such, there was likely physical evidence that Arthur Andersen’s auditors ignored several material accounting violations caused by both Enron and Arthur Andersen’s consultants. Unfortunately, it is difficult to prove this evidence given that all documents related to Enron were shredded by the auditors as soon as the scandal came to light, making it difficult to be certain around the extent of the complicity or the conflicts caused by Arthur Andersen providing Enron with substantial amounts of consulting services, at the same time as signing off company accounts which were later found to be almost completely inaccurate (Sloan et al, 2002).
然而，在安然的案例中，审计机构:安达信(Arthur Andersen)从自己的咨询部门发放了大量会计数据，而这些咨询部门向安然提供咨询和咨询服务。因此，很可能有实物证据表明，安达信的审计师忽视了安然和安达信顾问造成的几项重大会计违规行为。不幸的是,很难证明这证据给粉碎了所有文件与安然相关审计人员一旦丑闻曝光,很难确定共谋的程度或冲突引起的安达信为安然公司提供大量的咨询服务,同时注销后来被发现几乎完全不准确的公司账户(斯隆等人，2002年)。
As a result of this, the legislation governing publicly listed companies in the United States was rapidly tightened through the Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX, Act; which was intended to boost investor confidence. This legislation was based on the argument that a stock market is formed from a collection of share issuing firms; individual and institutional investors; and a body of accountants, lawyers and analysts. As such, the SOX Act was intended to ensure that each of these groups regained their own confidence in the system, and also confidence in each other. As such, the Act focused on promoting transparency and understandable data from the viewpoint of the final users of accounting data, rather that the provider (Kalafut, 2003).
因此，通过萨班斯-奥克斯利法案(Sarbanes-Oxley Act)，监管美国上市公司的立法迅速收紧;此举旨在提振投资者信心。这项立法的依据是，股票市场是由一系列股票发行公司组成的;个人和机构投资者;还有一个由会计师，律师和分析师组成的团体。因此，《萨班斯法案》的目的是确保这些团体中的每一个人重新获得他们自己对系统的信心，以及对彼此的信心。因此，该法案侧重于从会计数据的最终用户而不是提供者的角度促进透明度和可理解的数据(Kalafut, 2003)。
The main method by which SOX attempts to minimise and avoid conflicts of interest within the firm is by requiring corporations to establish corporate auditing committees; which are responsible for dealing with the auditors. This is because, previously, if auditors had any queries around the content of the financial statements, they had to seek out the management personnel responsible for generating the data. This meant that the managers could potentially shape the auditor’s interpretation of the information, particularly if the auditing company were also providing consulting or advisory services as occurred at Enron. In such an instance, the advisory staff may well themselves have exerted influence over their own auditors to ensure that the information was treated in a way that is favourable to the consultants, and not in a way that provided a true representation of the actual situation and data.
SOX试图最小化和避免公司内部利益冲突的主要方法是要求公司建立公司审计委员会;他们负责与审计师打交道。这是因为，在以前，如果审计员对财务报表的内容有任何疑问，他们必须找到负责生成数据的管理人员。这意味着管理者有可能影响审计人员对信息的解读，特别是如果审计公司也提供咨询或咨询服务，就像安然事件一样。在这种情况下，咨询工作人员本身很可能对他们自己的审计员施加影响，以确保以有利于顾问的方式处理资料，而不是以能够真实反映实际情况和数据的方式处理资料。
The audit committee is supposed to avoid this by ensuring that the auditors only communicate with the committee members, who are all independent from the management of the firm, and hence can look at any advisory services provided by the auditor with an independent and critical eye (Lansing and Grgunch, 2004). As a result, the act also recommends that one of the audit committee members should be a financial expert with a good knowledge of accounting principles and financial statements from a firm or firms in similar industries. This allows the committee to accurately discern the true nature of any financial instruments, such as the off balance sheet financing and other special purpose entities used by Enron to cover up its financial difficulties. This will also be vital if an auditing firm is providing significant non auditing services, as they may well use their auditing experience to advise their client on how best to structure their business to present it more favourably from an accounting point of view. Financial experts on the audit committee will have similar experience, and hence will be able to help the auditors make a fair assessment of the true nature of any creative accounting.
The other main part of the SOX Act which is designed to minimise any conflicts between the provision of consulting services and advisory services is that the penalties for being caught have been increased dramatically. In particular, the Act has increased the penalties which any CEOs and CFOs found guilty of violating any provisions of the Act would face. As part of this, CEOs and CFOs now have to sign off on the audited accounts and other statements that their companies file with the SEC, and will thus be held responsible if they certify statements which contain any false or misleading information. CEOs and CFOs who do so could face fines of up to $5,000,000 and potentially imprisonment for up to 20 years. As such, this places a significant responsibility on CEOs and CFOs, who are typically the board members responsible for appointing auditors and any advisory services, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest between the auditing and advisory services provided.
With all this regulation, one would expect that the disadvantages of auditors providing their audit clients with other services would be so great that many companies would not even consider it. However, it is important to note that there are some benefits which can be obtained within the current legal and regulatory framework. For one, Marks (2007) argues that auditors’ in depth knowledge of their clients’ and comparable firms’ accounts can allow them to advise firms on their governance processes, efficiency and other aspects of their financial performance and how to improve them. In addition, audit firms will be better able to advise firms how to legally avoid as much tax as possible, whilst avoiding anything which could be considered tax evasion. This is particularly important in the modern business world, where the removal of exchange controls and trade barriers makes tax avoidance more possible than ever before, but also provides significant potential for companies to fall foul of one or more of the tax regimes in which they operate (Sikka and Hampton, 2005). This helps to explain why many auditing firms also have large tax practices, as well as advisory services.
有了这些规定，人们可能会认为，审计师向其审计客户提供其他服务的缺点是如此之大，以至于许多公司甚至不会考虑这样做。但是，必须指出，在目前的法律和管理框架内可以获得一些好处。首先，Marks(2007)认为，审计师对其客户和类似公司的账目的深入了解，可以让他们就公司的治理过程、效率和财务业绩的其他方面以及如何改进它们提供建议。此外，审计公司将能够更好地建议公司如何合法地避免尽可能多的税收，同时避免任何可能被视为逃税的事情。这是特别重要的在现代商业世界中,取消外汇管制和贸易壁垒使得避税可能比以往任何时候都多,但也为企业提供了巨大的潜力的一个或多个的税制操作(Sikka和汉普顿,2005)。这有助于解释为什么许多审计公司也有大量的税务业务和咨询服务。
In contrast, the only real disadvantage of a company providing both audit and other services is the potential for regulatory violations and conflicts of interest. Of these, the potential regulatory violations were immediately seized on by the US Congress following the Enron scandal, as it emerged that Enron paid Arthur Andersen $25 million in auditing fees, but a further $23 million in fees for other consulting work. However, it was the potential for conflicts of interest which emerged as the strongest disadvantage, with many corporate boards worrying that continuing to buy consulting services and auditing services from the same firms would damage investor confidence, and lead to a drop in share prices (Kahn, 2002).
相比之下，同时提供审计和其他服务的公司唯一真正的缺点是可能违反监管和利益冲突。其中，在安然丑闻曝光后，美国国会立即抓住了这些潜在的违规行为，安然向安达信支付了2500万美元的审计费用，但还向其他咨询工作支付了2300万美元的费用。然而，潜在的利益冲突成为了最大的劣势，许多公司董事会担心继续从同一家公司购买咨询服务和审计服务会损害投资者的信心，并导致股价下跌(Kahn, 2002)。
As a result, of the Big Four accounting firms currently in the market: Deloitte, Ernst and Young, PWC and KPMG; PWC stopped providing consulting services to audit clients; Ernst and Young sold it consulting business and KPMG and Deloitte both divested of their consulting businesses throughout 2001 and 2002 (Kahn, 2002). This meant that none of the Big Four auditors, which together audited around 90% of the major companies in the US and UK, provided any substantial consulting services following the Enron scandal, although they did continue to provide tax and some transactions advisory services. However, by 2003 Deloitte had reversed its decision, and brought the consulting business back into the overall business, which then comprised auditing, tax accounting, corporate finance and consulting. This decision was taken in spite of industry concern around conflicts of interest and the provisions of the SOX Act, in the belief that Deloitte could provide its clients with the advantages of integrated professional and accounting services, whilst avoiding any of the potential regulatory concerns (Bryan-Low, 2003).
因此，目前市场上的四大会计师事务所:德勤、安永、普华永道和毕马威;普华永道停止向审计客户提供咨询服务;安永(Ernst and Young)在2001年和2002年出售了咨询业务，毕马威(KPMG)和德勤(Deloitte)都剥离了咨询业务(Kahn, 2002)。这意味着四大会计师事务所中，没有一家在安然丑闻后提供任何实质性的咨询服务，尽管它们确实继续提供税务和一些交易咨询服务。四大会计师事务所共审计了美国和英国约90%的大公司。然而，到了2003年，德勤改变了决定，将咨询业务重新纳入了审计、税务会计、企业财务和咨询等整体业务。尽管行业担心利益冲突和SOX法案的规定，但德勤相信，德勤可以为客户提供综合专业和会计服务的优势，同时避免任何潜在的监管担忧(Bryan-Low, 2003)，作出了这一决定。
Indeed, five years after the Enron scandal, Accountancy (2006) reported that the majority of accountancy firms, particularly the Big Four firms, have begun offering a wider range of services, and that the boundaries between these services are blurred, with inconsistent levels of disclosure. For example, PWC details specific revenues for audit, accounting and tax; however it also includes ‘advisory services’ in its revenues as an umbrella term for consultancy, corporate finance, and corporate recovery services. Also, whilst KPMG details separate categories including corporate finance, forensic accounting, transaction services and risk advisory services, the ‘risk advisory’ services are effectively the same as the consulting work offered by other accounting firms (Accountancy, 2006). This indicates that, even if the regulatory conflicts can be completely resolved, it will be difficult for shareholders to assess the true nature of their auditor’s revenues, and hence the potential for any damaging conflicts of interest.
事实上，在安然丑闻发生五年后，《会计学》杂志(2006)报道，大多数会计师事务所，尤其是四大会计师事务所，已经开始提供范围更广的服务，而且这些服务之间的界限已经模糊，披露水平不一致。例如，普华永道详细列出了审计、会计和税务方面的具体收入;不过，它的收入中也包括“咨询服务”，这是一个涵盖咨询、企业融资和企业回收服务的总称。此外，虽然毕马威详细介绍了公司财务、法务会计、交易服务和风险咨询服务等不同类别，但“风险咨询”服务实际上与其他会计师事务所提供的咨询工作相同(accounting, 2006)。这表明，即使监管冲突能够完全解决，股东也将难以评估其审计师收入的真实性质，从而难以评估任何破坏性利益冲突的可能性。
Unfortunately, future steps to address any issues as a result of this are likely to be hampered by the fact that SOX is already proving a significant regulatory burden to publicly listed companies in the United States. In addition, Fisher and Quick (2004) claim that the true problem is not the conflict between auditing and other services, but the fact that the Big Four accounting firms are so dominant, auditing all of the FTSE 100 companies in the UK. With there being no true competition to the Big Four amongst their main clients, the market has come to resemble and oligopoly, and with many senior accountants at clients coming from the Big Four firms, there is a danger that former accountants working in senior management may simply favour their alumni firms when choosing auditors. Whilst this should be mitigated by the presence of the audit committee, minimising the impact of this ‘old boys’ network’ amongst the major accounting firms would go a long way towards reducing any potential conflicts of interest, and increasing the scrutiny given to the provision of additional services, particularly amongst the Big Four.
In conclusion, and as the Enron scandal demonstrated, whenever an auditor of a publicly listed company also obtains significant revenues from providing their client with additional services, there is always the potential for a conflict of interest. In Enron’s case, this led to Arthur Andersen covering up significant losses which ultimately caused Enron to go bankrupt. The SOX Act should help to reduce this, by enforcing the use of an audit committee to prevent such conflicts, and increasing the pressure on executives to ensure that accounting data is fair. However, most of the major accounting firms continue to provide these services, hence the potential for conflict of interest remains. Possibly the only way to avoid this would be to attempt to break up the dominance of the Big Four, and create a more competitive market where the top firms have a wider choice of auditors, and hence can hold these auditors to higher standards of quality and transparency.
总之，正如安然丑闻所证明的那样，当一个上市公司的审计师也从为客户提供额外服务中获得可观的收入时，总是存在潜在的利益冲突。在安然的案例中，这导致安达信掩盖重大损失，最终导致安然破产。《萨班斯法案》(SOX Act)应通过强制使用审计委员会来防止此类冲突，并增加对高管们的压力，以确保会计数据的公平，来帮助减少这种情况。然而，大多数主要的会计师事务所继续提供这些服务，因此潜在的利益冲突仍然存在。避免这种情况的唯一办法可能是试图打破四大的主导地位，创造一个竞争更激烈的市场，让顶级律所有更广泛的审计师选择，从而可以让这些审计师达到更高的质量和透明度标准。
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