Valuation Issues,Auditor Fraud,and PCAOB Confirmation: Findings From an Analysis of Lawsuits Against Large Public Accounting Firms

Abstract

In this article, we bridge the gap between academia and practice by analyzing and presenting the results of allegations in more than 200 lawsuits against the largest public accounting firms. Our findings are critical as the lawsuits damage the firms’ reputations, the credibility of the profession in general, and may result in large monetary losses and loss of clients. We find three key results not found in previous legal research. First, we find that Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) issues, especially those focused on valuation, dominate Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS) issues in the allegations. Second, fraud allegations against the auditors themselves are a significant problem, although often ignored in the fraud literature. Third, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) reports on the accounting firms provide an unintended source of information for third parties in future legal allegations against those same firms.