American accounting firms have been infected with the "consulting
virus." This is the startling conclusion of leading US lawyer, Seán Coffey, partner with Bernstein
Litowitz Gerger & Grossman LLP. Mr Coffey will deliver a
public lecture in UCC on Thursday, 2 November at 7pm.
In his lecture titled "WorldCom and the Ways of Wall Street: A
Cautionary Tale about the Concentration of Economic Power", Mr Coffey
will address the WorldCom scandal and the role of various outside
professionals (auditors, bankers, lawyers). "I will address how,
in my view, the large American accounting firms had been infected with
what I call the "consulting virus", which caused them to ease up on
auditing (which was a marginally profitable business) in order to curry
favor with the corporate executives who were empowered to assign
consulting contracts (which were very profitable) to the same
accounting firms. My thesis is that it was the de facto
corruption of auditing firms that most seriously contributed to the
wave of corporate scandals in America in the past few years.
Simply put, they let aggressive companies get away with accounting
shenanigans because they wanted those companies to feed them the big
consulting deals", said Mr Coffey.
Mr Coffey will also describe the workings of Wall Street, carrying that
thought over into national economies, including Ireland.
The Bronx-born son of Irish immigrants, Mr. Coffey is a graduate of the
United States Naval Academy, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Ocean
Engineering, with merit, in 1978. He received his Juris Doctor,
magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 1987, where
he was Articles Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, a member of the
Order of the Coif, and recipient of the Charles A. Keigwin Award for
academic excellence.
Before graduating from law school, Mr. Coffey was a Commissioned
Officer in the United States Navy, where he served as a P-3C Orion
patrol plane mission commander, an Intern in the Organization for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the personal military aide to Vice President
George H.W. Bush. In August 2004, he retired from the Navy after 30
years of uniformed service.
Mr Coffey served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the
Southern District of New York from 1991 to 1995, where he conducted
numerous complex fraud investigations and tried many cases to
verdict. He has also served as the lead trial attorney in two of
the most notable fraud cases ever to go to trial in America.
Mr Coffey has extensive ties to Ireland, and particularly to West
Cork. He spent many summers working on the farm where his mother
was born, visiting his numerous cousins, aunts, and uncles throughout
Barryroe parish, and explaining why, given his father's birth in
Cahirciveen, he was occasionally required to root for Kerry in the
Munster Final.
The Lecture takes place on Thursday, 2 November at 7pm in Boole IV
Lecture Theatre, UCC. Members of the public are invited to attend
and admission is free. To reserve a seat please email:
Deirdre.keane@ucc.ie or telephone 021 4902201.
315MMcS
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