E&Y moves to shore up integrity
Ernst & Young has moved to underpin the public perception of its integrity by ruling out doing external audit work for publicly listed clients receiving outsourced internal audit services.
The move comes as an almost direct result of the heightened public awareness of accountants and their work assuring the integrity of company accounts.
Howard Martin, E&Y’s managing partner of business risk services, said the firm had taken the action because it needed to ‘put a marker in the ground’ about the firm and its concern with the perception of its reputation.
The firm has been discussing the policy change with clients but is still waiting to see what the overall reaction will be.
Among the audit clients of E&Y are FTSE-100 companies BP, British Airways, EMI and Next.
Martin said the change was a move to ‘self regulate’ even though regulation is expected in this area at some time in the future.
The New Year has also seen Deloittes react to the fall out from the Enron collapse by announcing it would separate audit from its consultancy business.