All eyes are on Thomas Flanagan, a former Deloitte VP who resigned a few weeks back, rather abruptly. On October 29th Delottie filed suit against Flanagan for allegedly buying stock in an unnamed company (Option Care, Inc.) just a week before a Deloitte client (Walgreens) announced their acquisition of the firm.

Deloitte had been the auditing firm contracted to review the deal. Falanaga had been the Deloitte client contact on the matter. In their lawsuit Deloitte claims ignorance of this an other questionable conduct on Flanagan's part - at least until regulators began asking them questions.

For more on the Flanagan case, check out The Chicago Tribune.

-- MDT

Labels: Deloitte, insider trading, Thomas Flanagan

From the sharp eye (and pen) of RE: The Auditors... Francine McKenna catches a potential issue on the rise.

Debvoise & Plimpton is the law firm retained by Siemens' audit committee to aid the company in their internal investigation of the bribery allegations. D&P will be using number crunchers from Deloitte Touche Tomahtsu to assist.

However, Deloitte and Siemens have a business relationship in implementing software for third party clients. Deloitte touts these industry alliances (with both Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. and Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc) right here.

Now Deloitte is a big place, but given their relationship with Siemens, should they really be the guys reviewing the books? And when will someone call them on it?

Hop on over to RE: The Auditors to read more of Ms. McKenna's comments on the subject.

-- MDT

Labels: Debvoise and Plimpton, Deloitte, Siemans Medical, Siemens

...and Delloite & Touche wants you to know about it. Check out the results of their online "prexting" poll of 230 financial executives. Also included is an, I think useful, outline of what one should be mulling over when considering hiring investigators on a company's behalf:

• Be clear at the outset how investigators will achieve the results desired, and define objectives, scope and how the information is to be reported.

• Be wary of investigators who say they can get bank account information or information only available to law enforcement.

• Understand that liability for an illegal investigation will likely extend to the organization that hired the investigator, not just the investigator himself.

• Establish written guidelines regarding the use of investigators, and establish clear reporting lines.

• Make sure you investigate your investigator, and find out whether they use subcontractors, and what kind of arrangement they have with these subcontractors.

Frankly, if an investigator doesn't provide you with some sort of case proposal that roles out or defines all of the above points for you before you even have to ask, do not hire them.

Now print this out and put it in the top drawer of your desk...

-- MDT

Labels: Deloitte, pretexting, prosecution guidelines

Deloitte & Touche SpA and Dianthus Spa, representing an Italian branch of the international accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche have agreed to pay Parmalat $149 million as compensation for D&T's role in the dairy giant's $8 billion accounting fraud. The firms served as auditors for Parmalat prior to the company's collapse.

This is only one of many such settlements with financial institutions that Parmalat has pursued as the company has attempted to crawl out from under scandal and $18 billion in debt on which it had defaulted. Parmalat has a similar suits still pending against several financial institutions including, notably, Grant Thornton and Bankf of America.

-- MDT

Labels: Deloitte, Dianthus, Grant Thornton, Parmalat