Audit Watchdog’s Work ‘Only Just Begun’ as it Logs Biggest Fine

The US audit regulator’s record fine for KPMG Netherlands in April is just the start of stepped-up enforcement against rule-breaking auditors, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s chair said Thursday.

“We’ve only just begun,” PCAOB Chair Erica Williams said at a Baruch College financial reporting conference in New York.

The PCAOB hit KPMG’s Dutch arm with a $25 million civil penalty for widespread cheating on internal training, the latest in a string of ethics crackdowns on accounting firms around the globe. So far in 2024, the audit regulator has levied $34 million in ...