Oscar vai para ...

O Oscar de 2017 teve como destaque uma empresa de auditoria. Para quem não lembra, no momento da entrega do prêmio de melhor filme, ocorreu uma confusão envolvendo o funcionário da empresa responsável pelo "ritual do envelope", a PwC.

Agora foram anunciados os candidatos ao prêmio e o fato ocorrido no ano passado é lembrado. Apesar do problema ocorrido, a organização não considerou isto grave o suficiente para trocar a auditoria. A PwC adotou "novas" regras para evitar o problema e o erro humano. A Academia de Cinema, responsável pela premiação, parece que considerou o problema como um "simples erro humano"

"Ainda assim, foi um grande erro humano, e foi um erro humano muito público"

Rir é o melhor remédio

Materialidade

A empresa de mineração Rio Tinto comprou, em 2011, em Moçambique, uma mina de carvão por 3,7 bilhões de dólares. O negócio foi péssimo para a empresa e seus acionistas e dois anos depois vendeu-se a mina por 50 milhões. A SEC, no segundo semestre de 2017, acusou a empresa e seus executivos de fraude.

Agora, o regulador do mercado de capitais dos Estados Unidos rejeitou os argumentos da empresa e dos executivos. Um deles indicava que o problema representava somente 3% dos ativos da empresa. A SEC considerou que a questão da materialidade deve ser decidida por um juri.

Empréstimos para estados e municípios

O TCU estaria investigando os empréstimos dos bancos públicos federais para estados e municípios. Somente a Caixa Econômica teria concedido empréstimos de 3,4 bilhões de reais em 2017. A União é o acionista controlador da instituição financeira e assumiria o risco de um eventual calote. Além disto, a concessão de empréstimo estaria sendo usado de maneira política por parte do governo:

a intenção dos técnicos do TCU é avaliar a postura dos bancos na concessão desses empréstimos, principalmente diante da “solução” encontrada por eles para driblar o endurecimento das regras do Tesouro, de conceder financiamentos sem garantia da União. Essas operações não são ilegais, mas têm maior risco. O temor do TCU é que uma dose exagerada desses empréstimos pode comprometer a saúde financeira das instituições e onerar a União.

Ameaça da Amazon

Segundo o jornal El Mundo, o presidente do El Corte Inglés, Dimas Gimeno, está aproveitando o encontro de Davos para alertar sobre a competição, em desigualdade de condições, com a Amazon. Isto parece estranho, já que a rede espanhola de distribuição, fundada em 1940, possui receitas de 14 bilhões de euros. Mesmo que este valor seja bastante expressivo, significa um pouco mais de 10% da receita o distribuidor online.

El sucesor de Isidoro Álvarez no plantea el desafío como una guerra contra los distribuidores online, sino para conseguir un terreno de juego igual para todos en el que sean posibles también acuerdos entre distribuidores convencionales y gigantes tecnológicos. Una muestra es el presidente de WalMart, Greg Foran, que puso en marcha un acuerdo el pasado año con el presidente de Google, Sundar Pichai, ambos presentes también en Davos.

Rir é o melhor remédio

Três memes inocentes...

PCAOB e KPMG 2

O Going Concern faz um resumo bastante detalhado da relação existente entre Brian Sweet, Cynthia Holder e Jeffey Wada, os dois primeiros ex-funcionários do PCAOB e depois contratados pela KPMG, e o último funcionário da entidade regula as empresas de auditoria, e David Middendorf, Thomas Whittle e David Britt, os três da KPMG.

Reproduzo a seguir o detalhamento da notícia divulgada ontem pela Reuters (vide aqui).

In 2015, when it looked like Sweet would be taking a role with the firm, he made his first mistake: “Sweet […] copied [PCAOB] Documents, as well as other confidential documents, from Sweet’s PCAOB computer to a personal hard drive.” These included “internal PCAOB manuals and guidance; […] comment forms issued in connection with inspections on which Sweet had worked; [and] a list of KPMG engagements to be inspected by the PCAOB in 2015.”

During Sweet’s first week on the job, in early May 2015, Middendorf asked him at lunch “whether a particular Issuer would be the target of a PCAOB inspection; and […] more generally, which KPMG engagements would be subject to inspection that year.”

Middendorf spoke to Sweet later that week, “[telling] Sweet to remember where Sweet’s paycheck came from and to be loyal to KPMG.”

Just a few days later, “Whittle asked Sweet for the list of engagements to be inspected by the PCAOB in 2015, most of which had not yet been officially noticed for inspection by the PCAOB. Whittle told Sweet that Sweet was most valuable to KPMG at that moment and would soon be less valuable.”

The next day, Whittle requested “the banking inspection list.” After discerning that Whittle meant the “inspection list,” Sweet sent it over and said, “Just so you know, it is actually the full list of anticipated inspections (including non-banks). I’d appreciate the team’s discretion to make sure it isn’t too widely disseminated.” Whittle said he understood “the sensitivity” but sent it to Middendorf anyway, writing in an email, “The complete list. Obviously, very sensitive. We will not be broadcasting this.”

The next month, June 2015, Sweet discussed the list with David Britt and wrote in an email, “Please note there is some sensitivity with these, and some of the teams have not yet been officially notified by the PCAOB, so please, use your discretion with this info.” Sweet went on to share the 2015 list with at least one partner who was not yet aware that his/her engagement would be selected for inspection.

That same month, Sweet used confidential PCAOB “risk factors” with a KPMG partner and the data firm that was helping the firm predict which audits would be selected for inspection.

Immediately upon his start at KPMG, Sweet started angling to bring Cynthia Holder to the firm. He wrote to her in an email “I’ve got a meeting set up with the head of the group tomorrow, and pulled together a list of potential hires . . . and put you as the #1 target!!!!)”

A couple weeks later, Holder told the PCAOB Ethics Office that she was “contacted today by a recruiter for KPMG asking if I would be interested in a job at the Firm. I told them that I was not interested . . .” Had she not lied about this to the Ethics Office, she would’ve been immediately removed from any work involving KPMG.

While she was inspecting KPMG, Holder used her position to share confidential info with Brian Sweet, including this gem: “Sweet asked HOLDER to provide Sweet

with an internal, confidential PCAOB Part II deficiencies comment form. On or about May 12, 2015, Holder used her personal email address to email Sweet at his personal email address and provided the requested document. The subject line of the email read ‘Anonymous Email.’ The body of the email consisted solely of an image of a winking-smiley face, and attached the confidential document Sweet requested.”

Also, in one instance Sweet talked Holder out of writing a comment on a KPMG inspection. When Sweet told Thomas Whittle about this, Whittle ” asked whether Sweet had opened his drawer, seen where his paycheck came from, and then advised the PCAOB employee not to write a comment.”
Holder also gave Sweet advanced notice that the PCAOB would be canceling one of its inspections and not replacing it. Sweet shared this information with Whittle and “The PCAOB subsequently notified KPMG that’ it would not inspect Issuer-1.” Sweet also informed Whittle that Holder was the source of all this info to encourage the firm to hire her.

Holder was offered a position with KPMG in July 2015. Before leaving the PCAOB, she copied confidential info to a thumb drive and copied it to her home computer. She then told Sweet about it after she started working at KPMG.

In November 2015, Jeffrey Wada started giving confidential information to Cynthia Holder. Holder passed it to Sweet; Sweet passed it to “relevant KPMG personnel.”

In February 2016, the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant called in KPMG for a scolding about their crappy inspection results. It was attended by “KPMG’s CEO, KPMG’s Vice Chair of Audit, and [Middendorf].” There were subsequent meetings as well.

Around this same time, Jeffrey Wada was a little frustrated with this job at the PCAOB, specifically that he didn’t get a promotion. He forward the PCAOB-wide promotion list email that did NOT include his name to Cynthia Holder who forwarded it to Brian Sweet.

About a week later, Wada emailed another PCAOB employee who didn’t get promoted, writing, “:I can’t believe we both got screwed last year.” The email, “[i]ncluded […] a cartoon depicting a man with a screw in his back.” That same month, Wada shared 12 issuers audited by KPMG that would be inspected with Holder.

Meanwhile, back at KPMG, Middendorf, Britt, Whittle and Sweet used this list of 12 to initiate “stealth re-reviews” in order to, chiefly, “[protect] KPMG’s monitoring programs” because negative results would constitute a “systemic failure.” The group agreed that the true nature of the “stealth re-reviews” needed to be a secret.

David Britt told a partner — Partner-3 in the indictment — that “Partner-3’s engagement would be inspected and that [he] could not tell Partner-3 the source of [his] knowledge. [He] also told Partner-3 not to tell any other members of Partner-3’s team.” Britt also lied to another partner — aka Partner-1 — about the reason for the re-reviews. According to the indictment: “Their inclusion in the access request was merely an effort to make the re-reviews look legitimate.”

These re-reviews detected problems in some of KPMG audits and the firm was able to take action prior to inspection and to perform additional work well after audit opinions were issued.

Back to the PCAOB leak — Wada read a preliminary list of audits that would be inspected to Holder in January 2017. Holder shared that info with Sweet, who subsequently took it to Whittle and Britt. They decided to notify partners on this list and to assign additional personnel to those engagements. Whittle asked Sweet to “alter an internal inspections list” to cover their tracks.

Also during this time, Jeffrey Wada was passed over for a promotion again, and he was NOT happy about it. He emailed Cynthia Holder his displeasure and we’re blockquoting it here because it’s so fun:

In February 2017, Wada read Holder a list of “approximately 50 stock ticker symbols, representing the full confidential list of KPMG clients to be inspected by the PCAOB in 2017.” You can guess what happens next, right? Yep, she shared it with Sweet and he shared it with the three musketeers. They discussed “which engagement partners should be notified that their engagements had been selected for inspection.”