Financial Times: Evidence does not support ‘conflict of interest’ worries

Jan Bouwens, Professor of Management Accounting at Cambridge Judge Business School, writes a letter to the Financial Times in response to suggestions that the Big Four accounting firms be broken up. “The worry raised by critics of firms that provide both audit and advisory services is that accountants are less likely to raise shortcomings in financial reporting because this could jeopardise their firms’ advisory business. Yet a considerable amount of research over the past 40 years on this subject simply does not support these concerns,” Professor Bouwens writes. (subscription)

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