Balkanized Auditor Liability Research

Fraudulent Financial Reporting: 1987–1997 An Analysis of U.S. Public Companies is not a private publication of its authors. The views expressed implicitly purport to be the views of the AAA and four other organizations. Thus, it would have been appropriate to publish in Accounting Horizons a critique of this work by AAA member Abraham Briloff. The reviewers’ comments suggest that they may have prejudged Briloff’s critique instead of carefully weighing its substantive strengths and weaknesses. Their behaviour may have been due to a defensiveness motivated by an outdated misapprehension of the current state of auditor liability.