U.S. Audit Regulator Feels Shadow of U.K. Carillion Fallout

The U.S. audit industry is keeping a close eye on a U.K. accounting scandal that has embroiled that country’s audit regulator.

Stakeholders at a meeting in Washington with the Public Accounting Oversight Board on June 5 and 6 raised concerns about whether the Big Four accounting firms might become audit-only firms in the U.K., and about what that would mean for their U.S. counterparts.

PCAOB member Jay Brown told the stakeholders that the board is “very interested” in the audit debate taking place on the other side of the Atlantic.

“If a regulator loses touch with its central mission and ...