The PCAOB continues its focus on broker-dealer auditors

At the small firm level, the PCAOB continues to exercise its relatively new authority under Dodd-Frank to regulate auditors of broker-dealers. Most of the settled orders involving small firm auditors of broker-dealers have involved independence violations, violation of the cooling off period between serving as engagement quality reviewer after serving as the engagement partner, or failures to have an engagement quality review (AS 1220 [formerly AS 7]). Today, PCAOB announced sanctions against an auditor of broker-dealers for violations of AS 1220 for failure to have an engagement quality review and obtain a concurring approval of issuance for audits and attestation engagements of 23 broker-dealer clients for the fiscal year 2015 and 30 broker-dealer clients for the fiscal year 2016. In the settled order, PCAOB revoked the auditor’s registration for two years and imposed a $10,000 civil money penalty.

Download the Shedjama Inc. and Edward Opperman, CPA, PDF at PCAOB here (PDF)