Anglo Irish Banks Auditors receive major NAMA contract....for auditing!!!

[Oldira1]

Ernest & Young, the firm that consistently gave Anglo Irish Bank a clean bill of health and for 8 years 'failed to notice' that Sean Fitzpatrick had massive loans with the bank have been appointed by the Financial Regulator to carry out an audit of the loans being transferred to NAMA.

I had to see was it April 1st when I read this recently.
This is an extract from the 2008 audit report...

Consolidated income statement - Anglo Irish Bank PLC - Annual Report and Accounts 2008


Surely to God someone must shout stop???????

[politicaldonations]

Ernest & Young, the firm that consistently gave Anglo Irish Bank a clean bill of health and for 8 years 'failed to notice' that Sean Fitzpatrick had massive loans with the bank have been appointed by the Financial Regulator to carry out an audit of the loans being transferred to NAMA.

I had to see was it April 1st when I read this recently.
This is an extract from the 2008 audit report...

Consolidated income statement - Anglo Irish Bank PLC - Annual Report and Accounts 2008


Surely to God someone must shout stop???????

Theres not much an auditor can do if they are being deceived at a systemic level.

[hammer]

They could be ideal from a Government prospective on NAMA.

They wont miss any loans transferred prior to year end and then transferred again post year end. They will know what to look out for now

I presume they also have an input into the value that Anglo put on assets prior to transfer to NAMA

[Bosun Higgs]

Weren't E&Y one of the auditors of Lehmann's?
Gordon Ramsay would be looking for lessons from these guys.

[Oldira1]

Theres not much an auditor can do if they are being deceived at a systemic level.

Total Crap. A junior audit assistant would spot the bed and breakfast of Seanies loans. I have seen directors of small companies of which they are the sole shareholder FINED for borrowing money off their own company. Any audit will have a number of post year end events and while I would accept that Fitzies loans may have been missed one year, I will not accept they were missed for 8 years.
As regards the normal loans...surely to God if E & Y accepted in 2008 that they were worth (at least) €14 BILLION more than their true value they are not a fit firm to value the same loans going into NAMA.
Any semblane of justice would have seen this firm barred from NAMA work.

[David Cochrane]

Your thread title is a (bit) incoherent, would you care to rewrite it?

[dpbdpb]

Its very difficult for an auditor to find fraud in a company when the management are hiding them. Im sure they werent in his name - im sure most of his loans were in companies or partnerships with names like ABC Partners, DEF Limited and i wouldnt be surprised if the company addresses were c/o big law firms in dublin. Plus its more than likely that it was a series of smaller loans, not one big loan.

Im sure there are a couple of hundred ex big 4 auditors working at Anglo - they would know the audit procedures inside out and how to hide stuff so it wont be found in these audits.

On the valuation of the property side - All auditors depend on outside property firms to value the properties, so if you looked at the loan files im sure all the big loans would have valuation opinions from the likes of Savills, HOK, Gunne etc. As these are (perceived!) experts in the property market, their valuations would be used.

Auditors dont check everything - that would be impossible (and insanely expensive).

[johnfás]

Its very difficult for an auditor to find fraud in a company when the management are hiding them. Im sure they werent in his name - im sure most of his loans were in companies or partnerships with names like ABC Partners, DEF Limited and i wouldnt be surprised if the company addresses were c/o big law firms in dublin. Plus its more than likely that it was a series of smaller loans, not one big loan.

Im sure there are a couple of hundred ex big 4 auditors working at Anglo - they would know the audit procedures inside out and how to hide stuff so it wont be found in these audits.

On the valuation of the property side - All auditors depend on outside property firms to value the properties, so if you looked at the loan files im sure all the big loans would have valuation opinions from the likes of Savills, HOK, Gunne etc. As these are (perceived!) experts in the property market, their valuations would be used.

Auditors dont check everything - that would be impossible (and insanely expensive).

+ 1.

People seem to think that an auditor is some sort of statutory investigator who goes in reassembling what comes out of the shredder. It is very easy for a company to shield items from the view of their auditor, particularly when they are employing people to professional do it. Does that mean it is impossible that auditors are not at times in on these sorts of frauds? Of course not. What it means is that the issue is neutral, they may be or they may be not. The obligation to provide the information to the auditors is on the directors. It is a director's obligation to ensure the correct books of accounts are filed, as per the companies acts. In an ordinary event, that is unless an auditor is directly in on a fraud, is it not clear that a director would take extensive means to avoid the issue coming to the attention of an auditor for the very reason that they would be obliged to report it? Not everything is a conspiracy theory.

+ 1 on your reliance on property valuers too. Who the hell else would be valuing the loans for goodness sake.

[captainwillard]

The directors signed statements stating the limit of their loans. The auditors would have reviewed these but reasonably placed a degree of trust on these statements. They are standard letters.

[Barnacle]

Regardless to their bad judgement and downright inability in dealing with the Anglo Irish case, the fact that they are linked to this should be enough to put them on the list of Accountant to avoid for NAMA. Absolute disgrace.