Failures of major financial institutions globally that have supposedly audited has led to major criticism of the auditing profession. The collapse of many large companies and the demise of one of the major auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, have damaged the credibility of financial statements and undermined the reputation of audit profession. Among the many explanations for these failures (like investors’ irrational exuberance, infectious greed, and foolishness; the bursting of the bubble; the impoverished morality of CEOs), the tendency of management to cook the books; the failure of the gatekeepers; and the ambiguities in application of financial reporting standards, which have encouraged auditors to be creative and apply their accounting gimmicks, are directly related to the auditing profession.
