Big Four to Face Monopoly Investigation

Submitted by Chris Gaetano on Mon, 10/24/2011 - 14:05

Saying that the current market for large company audits lacks sufficient competition, Britain's Office of Fair Trading has launched an investigation of the Big Four audit companies, which last year collectively earned 99 percent of the audit fees paid by FTSE-100 companies, according to the Associated Press. Depending on the results of the investigation, the British government could do things like limit the duration of audit appointments or even require the companies to divest some of their business to other firms or a new company, according to Bloomberg. Spokespeople from the Big Four disagreed with the assertion that there was not enough competition among them, with one PricewaterhouseCoopers board member saying that the four firms have a fierce rivalry.

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