1) Rodney Brick is completing a Master of Accounting part-time and has taken on a role as an auditing assistant with an audit/accounting firm and his first job is to assist with auditing the books of Daffey Jones Ltd, a major retailer. Whilst undertaking the audit, Rodney comes across certain financial information that he believes will assist him in completing one of the auditing assignments he is currently working on so he copies the information and uses it in the assignment, although he is careful by removing all reference to Daffey Jones in order to preserve the client's confidentiality.
Question: Has Rodney breached any auditing standards/regulations and if so, what and why?
2) Bertha Bigga has been the engagement audit partner on the Wait Alert Limited ("WA") account for a number of years. Roughly one year ago, WA's long-standing company secretary resigned and the company took almost nine months to find a replacement. At WA's request, Bertha performed company secretarial duties during this period of time.
Question: Do you have any concerns and are there any breaches that have occurred here?
3) John Bartram is the son of the factory manager of one of your firm's major audit clients, John Worst Foods Limited. John is studying accounting, with a specialisation in auditing at Holmes Institute. John applied for work during the summer where he could both earn money as well as gain first-hand experience in his area of interest. He is assigned to the audit of John Worst's Foods Limited where part of his audit work consisted of testing the internal controls of the cash payments and cash receipts system.
Q: What is the issue in this situation and what sections of the Act are bought into question? Is there something that should be in place with the audit firm?
(4) Ocean Adventures Limited is a large importer/wholesaler of luxury cruise boats and is currently experiencing financial difficulties. Their audit firm is PVC Partners but they have not paid the audit fees for the past three years. The audit partner recently threatened to resign from the audit if the outstanding fees were not paid. To prevent this occurring, Ocean Adventures offered to supply AUDITRUS with a nine-metre cruise boat as payment. The partner accepted this offer in full consideration of the outstanding fees, even though the boat was only worth 75% of the balance.
As a gift, Ocean Adventures also gave the partner a 15% shareholding in an unrelated company. At present these shares are worth $21,500.
Q: What if any, issues exist in this situation? Should PVC have accepted boat and the gift (consider each one separately in your answer).