四大的权力范围
关键词： 权力The power of four
[size=-1]Sep 14th 2006
From The Economist print edition
The auditing profession is dangerously concentrated
审计行业太过集中
WHATEVER you might think if your accounts have ever been qualified, auditors are only human. And humans tend to exploit their power. So it is understandable that Britain's accounting watchdog revealed last week that investors and the finance directors of the country's big companies worry about the dominance of the big four auditing firms—Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). This is not a uniquely British problem: accounting is a global profession—and it needs a global solution.
如果你的会计账目曾被审计过，无论你怎么认为，审计师们同样也是人。而人往往会滥用权力。故此英国会计行业监管机构上周所透漏的，大公司投资者和公司财务主管们对于四大审计所的支配地位的担心，是可以理解的，这四大分别是德勤、安永、毕马威和普华永道。这不仅仅是英国的问题：会计行业是全球性的——它需要一个全球性的解决方案。
Audits are vital to investors, who need trustworthy accounts if they are to allocate capital efficiently. It is everyone's business to have confidence in what they do. Past doubts have centred on the conflicts of interest when an auditor earns large fees for selling tax advice or consultancy. And there have been welcome moves to save auditors from such temptations.
审计对于投资者是至关重要的，他们需要信得过的会计账目，来充分有效地调配资金。对自己所做的事情有把握对每个人都很重要。过去的问题集中在审计师利用提供税务意见或咨询收取巨额费用而造成的利益冲突。已经有合理措施把审计师们从此种诱惑中解救出来了。
The worries that emerged this week were about choice. If one of the big four international accounting firms collapsed, some large quoted companies might be stuck without an alternative. Many companies even now have only three to choose from, because they buy non-audit services from one of the big four. Since audit firms tend to specialise by industry, some companies have no choice at all. The darker version of this theme is that the four will use their power to hold sway with litigators, regulators and standards setters. On the one hand, they dominate the profession's official bodies; on the other, they cannot be too severely sanctioned for fear that four might become an even more dominant three.
这周出现的担忧关乎选择权。假若四大国际会计师事务所中有一家倒闭，那么一些大的挂牌公司也必定会陷入困境。因为许多公司都是从四强中的一家获取非审计服务，如今他们选择就只剩三个了。由于审计所往往是依照行业细分，一些公司根本就别无选择。负面效应是四大会利用此权力保持对诉讼代表，监管者以及准则制定者的影响力。一方面，他们控制本行业的官方机构；另一方面，这种约束力又不能太过苛刻，唯恐四大会变成更有支配力的三大。
It is not an idle threat. The profession is in this pickle only because Andersen, the auditor of Enron and WorldCom, collapsed in 2002 after its conviction (later overturned) for obstruction of justice. Since then Japan's financial regulator has suspended the audit licence of PWC's Japanese arm for two months and Ernst & Young's American arm was banned in 2004 for six months from taking on new public-company audit clients for reckless and negligent conduct. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that Ernst was allowed to keep its existing clients for fear of the consequences if they were taken away. One of the reasons American prosecutors did not indict KMPG last year for its part in a case of massive alleged tax fraud may have been to avoid the risk of another Andersen-like collapse.
这并非杞人忧天。这个行业陷于如此进退两难的境地只不过因为安然和世通的审计所——安达信在2002年被指控妨碍司法罪（后被推翻）后倒闭。打那之后，日本金融监管机构暂停普华永道的审计资格两个月，并且安永美国分支也在2004年因为鲁莽和疏忽行为在6个月内被禁止吸纳更多的上市公司审计业务。很难消除这样一个猜疑，就是安永之所以被允许保留原有客户就是因为担心出现原有客户也被全部取消后导致的前述后果。去年美国检察官没有因为大额税务欺诈控告毕马威，其中一个原因也许就是怕重蹈安达信覆辙。
Imbalance sheet
众说纷纭
Everyone has his own fix for this mess. Least appealing is one of the auditors' own proposals, that the state protect them by capping their liabilities if they are sued for damages. Academic research suggests that similar legislation in America has led auditors to cut corners and take risks. Others think the best solution is to help the second-tier accounting firms audit the big companies. The trouble is that smaller firms would invest in gaining expertise only if they had a good chance of being appointed. But, without a reputation, firms' appeal is limited.
对此人们各持己见。但最不受欢迎的是审计师们自己的主张之一：由国家通过限定诉讼中他们的最高赔付额来保护他们自己。学术研究表明美国相类似的法条会让审计师们去冒险打擦边球。其他人认为最好的办法是让稍次一些的审计所去审计那些大公司。困难在于较小的审计所只会在有很大机会被任命的情况下才投资去扩展专业技能。可是没有很好的声誉，它们的吸引力也会受限。
The best way to ensure independence (and weaken the stranglehold of the big auditors) is compulsory rotation: clients should be required to appoint a new firm every seven years or so. Bring in that change and four big auditors would not seem too few. Meanwhile, regulators have no business giving big firms an easy ride just because they fear what will happen if they do what is right. If one of the big four collapses, so be it. Then the moment for drastic remedies will be at hand and the remaining big three should be split up.
强制轮值制度是保证审计人员的独立性（削弱几大审计所的压制）的最好办法：客户应该任命大约每七年任命一个新的审计所。这样以来，四大审计所就不会显得如此稀少了。同时，如果公正行事，监管者没有义务就因为担心某些事情发生而为大公司保驾护航。如果四大之一倒闭，就由他去吧。力挽狂澜的时刻会随之而来，剩下的三个则理应被分解。
Copyright © 2006 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
By FeBird
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