You posed the question: "So what the heck were KPMG playing at? And what were the auditors of Opes Prime & Tricom thinking?"
My nephew, who is a Chartered Accountant, was working in 2001 in North America for one of the huge multinational accounting firms. At the time he was 26.
He understood that he was being encouraged to shut an eye (wink, wink) to creative accounting during his audits in order to be more "customer responsive". This, of course, was before Enron and Sarbanes Oxley.
He mentioned it to his father (my brother) who advised him to resign immediately; which he did. He was hired elsewhere and has never looked back, except with relief.
The term "Auditor" is now being misread as "one who hears" and they seem ready to hear and be influenced by whatever the client wants of them.
This laxity appears to be occurring within the standards of many professions.
Perhaps it has something to do with increasing "self regulation".
