EY Fined $9m for Improper Auditor Relationships

Big companies and their outside auditors often have close professional relationships. But now, for the first time, US regulators have taken enforcement action over relationships that became a little too close: it has fined professional services firm Ernst & Young $9.3m for failures including an auditor’s romantic involvement with a client. Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission have found that a senior EY partner involved in the audit of a New York-based public company forged an improperly close friendship with the company’s chief financial officer and spent more than $100,000 on corporate entertainment for the executive.