OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Francine McKenna: The Big 4 Run a Racket

Francine McKenna has long been a must-read at re:theAuditors.

Now she’s at The Huffington Post too, and a force to be reckoned with:

Governments all over the world are protecting and shielding the public accounting firms from failure under any circumstances, even in the face of repeated failure on their part. The current business model for global public accounting firms no longer promotes the safeguarding of shareholder interests in the modern publicly traded multinational. Shareholders, and other stakeholders, are being shafted. The firms and their partners may be corrupt. They are unequivocally self-interested.

When it comes to the Big 4 public accounting firms, the official word is still, “Too few to fail. Too powerful to call to account.”

Go to Francine McKenna: The Button-Down Mafia: How the Public Accounting Firms Run a Racket on Investors and Thrive While Their Clients Fail.

4 Responses to “Francine McKenna: The Big 4 Run a Racket”

  1. Kel

    Interesting points. I will definitely look into more of Francine’s blog posts to get a better idea for the issue. My first thought though is that as long as they are following the rules well… then the rules need to be different so that they have to report the full picture. It is hard to tell the client who pays you “We aren’t required to disclose this, but we morally should” and take the moral high ground, and actually disclose something, *especially* in such a big firm, where there is more pressure to go along with the group.

  2. Francine McKenna

    Thanks for the post Rick.

    My blog and other writing provides an alternative view of the business of the Big 4. It’s a view you don’t see in the mainstream media very often. Any agenda, on the blog or anywhere else, is mine and mine alone. I make no apologies for it. I’ve written plenty of posts on my blog with ideas for changes and reforms. I encourage your readers to take a look and not view the Huffington Post piece in isolation.

  3. Anonymous

    HuffPo? They don’t have an agenda, do they????

  4. Neil

    Read the full article yesterday. She has has some points while others seem over the top. After working in one of the large firms I left with nothing but respect for them. Do they make mistakes ? Don’t we all make mistakes.

    Not sure what is accomplished by bashing without a constructive solution.