In the News
NY Times - Global or Local? For Accounting Firms, It All Depends
By Floyd Norris - The New York Times
March 14, 2008This is the era of the global firm, whether in finance or industry. A company like Toyota or Citigroup may have its headquarters in one city, but it has operations all over the world and gets capital from a similarly broad base. When Citi ran into difficulties, it turned to Abu Dhabi.
And then there is accounting.
At first glance it appears that there are also a handful of global accounting firms — the Big Four and a couple of... others — but that is not the reality.
Those firms are formally organized as a series of partnerships, each of them relying for capital on its own partners rather than on outside sources of capital. And while they may market themselves as unified organizations with worldwide abilities, a very different view is presented when someone sues over a failed audit.
Then the firms disclaim any responsibility for actions of a firm with a similar name in another country. It is as if Toyota in Japan insisted it had nothing to do with Corollas made in California.
