Wild Speculation Wednesday: Ernst & Young Big Brother Edition

Because we don't feel like we spread enough paranoid delusional theories here, we're sharing this post we found at RevolutionRadio.org:

It is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived. India is to issue each of its 1.2 billion citizens, millions of whom live in remote villages and possess no documentary proof of existence, with cyber-age biometric identity cards. The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion.

What's even better is that an Ernst & Young partner worked on one of the pilot "schemes" as the Times Online puts it. So obviously this causes us to speculate about the following:

1. How involved is E&Y in this current plan to identify every single human being in India?
2. Will they also secretly somehow implant tracking chips by issuing 10-key calculators to every person when the cards are issued?
3. Will the Two-Minute Hate be directed at the other Big 4 firms?
4. And the most obvious question: How is Goldman Sachs involved?

India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards [Times Online]

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Ernst & Young Still Not Losing Sleep Over the Schein Lawsuit

Ernst & Young has the unenviable distinction being the large firm that has a major trial ongoing. We mentioned it awhile back, noting that while E&Y has got plenty of lawsuits to worry about, this one didn't seem like anything to sweat over.

Well, an E&Y witness has given our theory a little boost, stating that a type of the loan created by the Plaintiff, Alan Schein, and marketed by the failed bank, was "deceptive and predatory". Not exactly a flattering description.

Regardless of what E&Y did or did not do (and they've already paid fines to settle claims by regulators so they've got, at the very least, a smidge of guilt) the jury hearing "deceptive and predatory" in the same sentence as the plaintiff will go much farther than any Zapruder Film-type evidence that Schein might dig up.

Superior Bank Peddled Risky Loans, Ernst & Young Witness Says [Bloomberg] Sphere: Related Content

Ernst & Young Might be Going Down but It's Not Because of This

So you merge your company with a bank and it turns out that the bank has about half a billion less in assets than they reported. Regulators come in, take over the bank and your life is ruined. RUINED! The next, most logical step (and most American, for that matter) is to sue anyone and everyone that remotely has got their stank on this thing because, dammit, businesses don't fail in America!

Alan Schein sold his mortgage marketing company (sounds like a scam) to Superior Bank of Illinois and turns out, Superior was making up their numbers. E&Y missed the booboo and now Schein is blaming the them, natch, because what the hell does he know about auditing or doing due diligence?

Oh, and Schein is also claiming that E&Y covered up the mistake because they were trying to sell their consulting arm at the time for $10 Bil and Capgemini, the buyer, would have never bought E&Y's consulting business because of a mistake made by the audit practice. NEVER!

Schein, obviously being a student of classic egomaniacal logic because, duh, his business was so kick ass that a multi-billion dollar deal WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED had this accounting error was known by all.

Our advice to Mr. Schein would be that if you're going to make wild-ass accusations, at the very least try taking a less narcissistic route. You're a small fish pal. E&Y saves their cover ups for failures of Lehman-sized proportions and having serious Madoff exposure and auditing UBS, not your shady "mortgage marketing company" (which we still don't know what that is). E&Y, don't worry, we've got your back on this one.

Ernst & Young Sued for Allegedly Covering Up Bad Audits [Law.com] Sphere: Related Content

SHOCKER: E&Y Puts Out a Top Ten List That Isn't Funny

Chris Rauber at the San Francisco Business Times is snarking about Ernst & Young's "Top 10 Global Business Risks for Big Multinationals". Two observations come to mind immediately:

1. Atrocious name
2. Letterman should only be allowed to designate anything as "Top 10"

If you read the list, you find that E&Y really went out of their to way to be, as Rauber points out numerous times, painfully obvious. Almost to the point that you wonder if they're having trouble thinking of stuff to put on the list. Next time a project of this nature comes around, try drinking three Red Bulls as fast as you can and follow that with some bumps in the bathroom.

Then get back to working a project like this. We would suspect you might get better (at least more interesting) results.

As if there isn't enough to worry about, Ernst & Young [Chirs Rauber/San Francisco Business Times] Sphere: Related Content

E&Y Layoffs

Confirming last week's Wild Speculation Wednesday, comments elaborate on the layoffs at E&Y. Sounds like many were on visas (classy, E&Y) and the axed got four weeks of severance, which seems to be the norm among the Big 4.

Any more tips or rumors, please pass them along. Sphere: Related Content

Ernst & Young Layoffs and Wild Speculation Wednesday

Tramp just received a tip that the Ernst & Young tax practice in New York will be laying off staff tomorrow. This layoff is a follow up to the dismissal of 50-60 tax professionals that occurred in February.

This also occurs after the reported tax layoffs in the UK by KPMG.

Tax professionals getting the axe, while historically being excellent survivors, leads us to wildly speculate whether this layoff trend in tax will continue to proliferate across the firms' tax practices.

It could simply be the result of audit partners weeping about how bad they've got it and the bigwigs are asking the tax partners to get a little blood on their hands as well.

If anyone out there has more specific information or other tips, please pass them along. Sphere: Related Content

HealthSouth Lawyers Want $20M For Going After E&Y

The New Mexico attorney general says that the attorneys that sued E&Y on behalf of HealthSouth Investors should receive $20 million on a proposed $109 million settlement.

The settlement was over E&Y's failure to detect the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth that was pretty much all Richard Scrushy's fault.

According to the article the AG said that the fee was "reasonable" because of counsel's "superior skill and ability"

In a strange bit of irony, it's likely that because of E&Y's superior skill and ability, they must have concluded that the $2.7 billion discrepancy was reasonable.

HealthSouth Investors’ Lawyers Deserve $20 Million [Bloomberg] Sphere: Related Content

...And Then the PCAOB Celebrated at TGI Friday's

The PCAOB is continuing its rape and pillage of auditors of public companies. After having its way with Deloitte and McGladrey & Pullen, the PCAOB thought it would take a little detour through Times Square to E&Y.

According to the PCAOB, E&Y sucks at a lot of things including but not limited to:

• Revenue recognition
• Compiling enough evidence for valuation of securities
• Obtaining appropriate evidence for estimating the valuation of income tax allowances

Per CFO.com:

The deficiencies were linked to the firm's national office in New York and 22 of its 85 U.S. offices. These errors were significant enough for the oversight board to conclude the firm "had not obtained sufficient competent evidential matter to support its opinion on the issuer's financial statements or internal control over financial reporting."

Ok, so deficiencies at 22 out of 85 offices is approximately...not very fucking good.

Oh, and the best part is that two of clients with the revenue recognition deficiencies ending up restating their financial statements. Oops.

PCAOB Rips E&Y on Revenue Recognition [CFO]

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Ex-Ernst Partner Off to his Retirement Home

Sort of...

In the latest edition of auditors behaving badly, a former partner at E&Y was found guilty on Friday of securities fraud for an insider trading venture scheme. The poor bastard is looking at doing up to 20 years and paying millions in fines after tipping off a friend about deals going down that E&Y clients were involved in.

On the bright side, if the judge goes easy on him at sentencing, his credentials are strong for any openings at the SEC.

E&Y continued the FB4 policy of staying mum after someone walks the plank.

Ex-Ernst Partner Guilty of Insider Trading [DealBook]

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The Plot for Next Season's 24 is Set

I'm quite certain that this could not have been an auditor/tax professional as it probably would have required actually leaving work, which we all know, rarely happens at E&Y, KPMG, et al.

If, it turns out, this person who got the Wilbur flu had left the office and accordingly acquired said flu, I'm sure we'll be reading about her dismissal in the next few days.

...Or Jack Bauer will attempt to get a clue from her about who infected her with the virus only to have her die immediately at the point when she's about to confess to her involvement in the development of a swine flu bio-weapon after a little coaxing from Agent Bauer.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled swine flu coverage.

Ernst & Young Closes Down Section Of Times Square HQ Where Swine Flu Staffer Worked [Clusterstock] Sphere: Related Content