title: Public Accounting Firms: Mandated Study on Consolidation and Competition
creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
publisher: United States. General Accounting Office.
date: 2003-07-30
language: English
description: A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an
 abstract that begins "The audit market for large public companies is an
 oligopoly, with the largest firms auditing the vast majority of public
 companies and smaller firms facing significant barriers to entry into the
 market. Mergers among the largest firms in the 1980s and 1990s and the
 dissolution of Arthur Andersen in 2002 significantly increased concentration
 among the largest firms, known as the "Big 4." These four firms currently
 audit over 78 percent of all U.S. public companies and 99 percent of all
 public company sales. This consolidation and the resulting concentration have
 raised a number of concerns. To address them, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
 mandated that GAO study (1) the factors contributing to the mergers; (2) the
 implications of consolidation on competition and client choice, audit fees,
 audit quality, and auditor independence; (3) the impact of consolidation on
 capital formation and securities markets; and (4) barriers to entry faced by
 smaller accounting firms in competing with the largest firms for large public
 company audits."
subject: Government accountability -- United States.
subject: financial markets and institutions
subject: public accounting firms
subject: letter report
coverage: United States
rights: Public Domain
type: Report
format: Text
identifier: rep-no: GAO-03-864
identifier: local-cont-no: 239229
identifier: url: http://gao.gov/products/GAO-03-864
identifier: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc291140/
identifier: ark: ark:/67531/metadc291140