kiểm toán viên có thể bất chấp các cuộc xung đột kiểm toán viên độc lập tiềm năng khi có kinh doanh hay hỗ trợ khách hàng. Điều này có thể là một trong những khu vực nghiên cứu thêm sẽ là hữu ích. Ví dụ, một nghiên cứu công bố trên tạp chí Đạo đức kinh doanh và báo cáo trong | Sutton s Critique of Serving the Public Interest many auditors may be disregarding potential auditor independence conflicts when obtaining business or assisting clients. This may be one area where additional research would be helpful. For example a study published in the Journal of Business Ethics and reported in The Wall Street Journal indicated that 47 of the top executives 41 of the controllers and 76 of the graduate-level business students participating in an experiment would be willing to commit fraud by understating write-offs that cut into their company s profits. The Wall Street Journal at C1 March 26 1996 Brief Dukerich Brown Brett What s Wrong with the Treadway Commission Report Experimental Analyses of the Effects of Personal Values and Codes of Conduct on Fraudulent Financial Reporting 15 Journal of Business Ethics 183 1996 . The issue however is not necessarily limited to rogue auditors it is how to provide comprehensive and understandable guidance to auditors while giving comfort to the public that the independent audit function remains protective of the interest of investors. Legal Liability Litigation Risks. Contrary to the arguments in the White Paper page 82 and elsewhere potential legal liability in a civil proceedings is not a deterrent to compromising independence. No firm to the best knowledge of the staff has paid a judgment or settlement in a private civil proceeding solely as a result a finding of a loss of auditor independence. The arguments and statistics in the White Paper addressing legal liability and litigation costs simply are not relevant to this issue. The absence of case law addressing auditor independence issues may be attributed to among other things 1 the absence of public knowledge of the nature and extent of nonaudit services provided by the firms to audit clients and 2 the fact that a lack of auditor independence may not by itself be considered to have caused a plaintiff s damages. See . Robbins V. Koger Properties Inc. .
