In February 2006, the SEC filed charges
against two former auditors of U.S. Foodservice,
the audit engagement partner and senior audit
manager who had been assigned to the company’s 1999 audit engagement team. From 1996
through the conclusion of the 1999 audit in April
2000, KPMG had served as the independent audit firm of U.S. Foodservice. When the company
was acquired by Royal Ahold in 2000, Deloitte
Accountants, B.V., chose Deloitte & Touche to
audit the U.S. Foodservice financial statements
that were to be incorporated in Royal Ahold’s
consolidated financial statements.
The SEC alleged that the two former KPMG
auditors violated numerous generally accepted
auditing standards (GAAS) during the performance of the 1999 U.S. Foodservice audit. The
SEC’s most serious allegation was that the two
auditors had identified several instances in
which the company had improperly recorded
promotional allowances and then later used
white correction liquid to obscure the audit exceptions that documented those items. Those
audit exceptions were allegedly masked with
correction liquid before the U.S. Foodservice
workpapers were turned over to the SEC—the
federal agency had requested the workpapers
during the course of its investigation of the U.S.
Foodservice accounting fraud.
Among other allegations, the SEC charged
that the two auditors frequently relied on
implausible representations made to them by
client officials. By failing to investigate those
suspicious statements and other red flags apparent during the 1999 audit, the SEC maintained
that the two auditors failed to exercise a proper
degree of professional skepticism, failed to propose proper adjustments to U.S. Foodservice’s
financial statements, and failed to collect sufficient competent evidence to support the audit
opinion rendered on those financial statements.
In commenting on the case, an SEC spokesperson observed, “These auditors had evidence in
their hands that could have stopped the fraud
in its tracks. Instead, because they failed to
exercise appropriate professional skepticism,
the fraud was allowed to continue.”
In January 2008, a federal judge dismissed
the allegations of improper professional conduct filed against the two former KPMG auditors by the SEC. Among other factors, the judge
based her decision to dismiss those charges
on the extreme degree of deception that
U.S. Foodservice personnel used to mislead the
two auditors and on the failure of the SEC to
corroborate its allegations with appropriate evidence. For example, according to the judge, the
SEC failed to provide any evidence to support
its claim that the two auditors were the individuals who had used correction fluid to obscure
the audit exceptions that documented improper
accounting decisions by U.S. Foodservice.