Lifting the ban – letters to the editor – Letter to the Editor
IN “THEY MIGHT be Giants” (January) you ask: “It’s been nearly two years since Arthur Andersen went under and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed. Have the Big Four audit firms changed since then?” Reading that, you might surmise that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants was in favor of lifting the ban on advertising and solicitation by CPAs.
Yes, it is true that we lifted the ban–in part because of a pending Department of Justice investigation of the AICPA regulations following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting similar regulation in the legal profession. The Department of Justice insisted the ban be lifted on the grounds that regulations restricting advertising limited consumer choice and access to commercial information.
Barry Melancon
President and CEO
AICPA
New York
COPYRIGHT 2004 CFO Publishing Corp.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
