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lungben81 t1_iy04sm7 wrote

Reply to comment by HegemonNYC in [OC] 'Big 4' accounting firms are PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY - breaking down how they make money by giteam

The Big4 are quite active in consulting business at large financial institutions (at least in Germany). At the same time, there are only these 4 audit firms and auditors must change every few years. Thus, the likelihood that the same company is consulting and auditing the same client at the same time, or in short succession, is quite high.

The official "solution" to this potential conflict of interest is that 2 different sections of the big4 company do consulting and auditing. But I do not know how solid this separation is in practice.

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DeTrotseTuinkabouter t1_iy0hhmr wrote

The likelihood is very damn low. I worked at a Big4 in consulting, not being able to service audit customers was a huge problem for us and simply cut our addressable market by 25% (assuming that there are only four audit firms and we were one of them). I think technically to some amount it could be exempted but in practice it was as good as impossible.

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dragonlax t1_iy0ylq3 wrote

Literally part of the proposal process is making sure there are no audit restrictions. (I worked at EY for 5 years in consulting)

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