Professor William Black:

That means I hire the audit partner. The senior banker hires the audit partner. We have a dog and pony show in which they pitch for the business. This is how one becomes a "biggie" in a top-tier audit firm. One brings in a whale of a client, as the phrase goes, and signals in the course of that, and we could have a complete video tape and it would not matter, that one is the right kind of auditor. That is who gets hired, and that is why we will find throughout Europe and throughout the United States preposterous financial statements that got clean audit opinions from top-tier auditors. They deliberately go to top-tier auditors because that reputation enhances both looting and the fraud. Places that are massively insolvent with terrible underwriting invariably get clean opinions from top-tier auditors.