KPMG and Silicon Valley Bank: Federal judge says case will go on for KPMG, who faces a trial if there's no settlement
You can bring an auditor to court, but it has been much harder to bring it to justice. Fortunately, the plaintiffs attorneys are getting very good at forcing accountability.
Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart.
But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.
Dr. Martin Luther King, December 18, 1963, Western Michigan University.
We still don't know the ultimate fate of the PCAOB.
However, I am fairly certain that it's a goner. That’s regardless of whether it is legislatively forced to disappear under the skirts of "Mother" SEC or whether SEC Chair Paul Atkins disembowels the regulator by first firing its board — except for maybe one quisling — and then by slowing the roll of all of the PCAOB activities using the SEC's oversight authority.
In the Spring of 2013 — time flies — I wrote a feature piece for The Advocate, a publication of the law firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman.
I believe private litigation is our last hope of holding auditors accountable, given, in my sad opinion, the likely demise of the PCAOB, and the dramatic pullback by the SEC in holding auditors accountable — as evidenced by its Jarkesy case drops and the unabashed prior paid advocacy of its new Chairman on behalf of the Big 4 global firms.
Fortunately, the plaintiffs attorneys are getting very good at litigating against the global audit firms.
On Friday June 13, Judge Noël Wise, United States District Judge, in the Northern District of California, denied the motions to dismiss in RE SVB FINANCIAL GROUP SECURITIES LITIGATION, submitted by Silicon Valley Bank CEO Gregory W. Becker and its CFO Daniel J. Beck, by its auditor KPMG, and by executive Karen Hon, and underwriter[1] and director[2] defendants. The defendants must file an answer to the plaintiffs' complaint within 21 days of the order.
The next step in the case against KPMG for SVB is a trial, if a settlement doesn't occur before that.