Auditing's white knight

Auditor and chartered accountant Steven Firer is all about attention to detail.

So when the director of a company questioned his legal knowledge in respect of an audit in 2010 he took it as a professional challenge and decided to get a law degree.

His LLM thesis looked at how the liability of auditors should be regulated or limited in the event of negligence by the directors of a company they had audited.

He believes that auditors should not be held liable for the negligence of directors.

"I live my thesis every day because I'm an auditor and I'm scared of being sued," the former Wits accounting professor said.

Firer said laws in Europe and Australia that protect auditors could be used in South Africa.

"Auditing companies here are currently expected to pay half of the penalty. One of my recommendations was that they be required to pay no more than 20 times the auditing fees.

"We can't afford to lose the auditing profession. If all the big auditing firms go down, we all go down."

Firer, 56, a technical partner at Nkonki Inc, had his LLM degree conferred at the University of the Witwatersrand yesterday.

He also has a Bachelor of Commerce degree, a Bachelor of Accounting Science degree, an MBA and a doctorate.

He wants to use his new qualification to protect other auditors.

"Getting a law degree was about more than just proving a point. I wanted to gain credibility and make a difference in the accounting industry."

The father of four attributes his success to his wife of 14 years, Desiree, who is a cancer survivor.

"This degree was a challenge, but with people being sued on a regular basis it was a practical qualification to study for," he said.