In “to me that’s not an audit, that’s a joint venture”...

1 ______ A compelling case can be made for mandatory audit

rotation that auditors who keep the same client for too long get

excessively cosy with its management. As somebody has put

4 it, “When the same incumbent firm has been in place for 100

years, to me that’s not an audit, that’s a joint venture.”

______ Most academic studies have either found no link

7 between the length of a relationship and its quality, or

determined that longer tenures yield better results, because the

accountants have time to master the intricacies of clients’

10 businesses. Obliging companies to solicit bids at regular

intervals, as Britain does, has shaken up the business: HSBC

said in August that it will drop KPMG in favour of PwC; on

13 December 2^nd Unilever announced that it is making the

opposite switch. Indeed, the big accounting firms argue that

forced rotation would reduce competition by preventing the

16 incumbent from bidding.

______ Proponents counter that the accounting giants, and

academics whose research is often financed by them, have

19 good reason to resist change. Among the reform’s strongest

supporters are smaller firms that hope to break the Big Four’s

stranglehold.

22______ Yet even the most vocal advocates of mandatory

rotation concede that it is no magic bullet. Auditors have a

conflict of interest at the heart of their business — they are paid

25 by the companies they are supposed to assess objectively.

Unless that changes, there will be no substitute for investors

doing their own due diligence.

Idem (adapted).

Judge the following items, according to the text above.