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A Review And Evaluation Of Audit Quality Oversight, Srinivasan Ragothaman, Theodore Mock, Rajendra Srivastava

Faculty Publications

As a result of massive financial statement frauds at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Sunbeam, Waste Management, Xerox and others, the US Congress enacted the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX 2002). This Act set up the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) which regulates the auditing profession in the US. The PCAOB issues auditing standards, inspects audit quality and also has enforcement powers. Following the US lead, nations such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have set up national statutory bodies to monitor audit quality.

This paper summarizes the work of these national bodies and synthesizes recent reports of these …