After seven of its accountants received penalties from financial regulators, KPMG Certified Public Accountants (
On Tuesday, the accounting firm reshuffled its top management by forming a seven-member board, chaired by Chang Wu-yee (張五益). KPMG also plans to invite one or two outside directors from the academic sector to its board.
Chang, who took over the accounting firm's leadership from former head Albert Lou (羅子強), said that the company's new organizational structure aims to separate its policy-making system from its executive body.
As part of his reform plan, Chang stressed the importance of audit integration, saying that KPMG will now differentiate between its clients as financial service sector and non-financial sector, so as to help upgrade its accounting services.
Thus far, financial-service clients have accounted for up to 80 percent of KPMG's total revenues a year, according to Chang.
In the past few months, the nation's financial watchdog, the Financial Supervisory Commission, imposed penalties on accountants from KPMG and its counterparts for their negligence in certifying listed companies' financial reports, following the emergence of several corporate scandals since June last year.
In December, the commission imposed penalties on 12 certified public accountants for negligence in certifying financial documents of such companies as Procomp Informatics Co (
These actions appeared to suggest that the commission now holds accountants more responsible for the accuracy of listed companies' financial reports they have certified.
Facing such escalating levels of business risk and responsibility, Ulyos Maa (
The firm will also form a special review team to identify risk when certifying listed companies' financial documents, while strengthening the training of its junior partners.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RESHAPING COMMERCE: Major industrialized economies accepted 15 percent duties on their products, while charges on items from Mexico, Canada and China are even bigger US President Donald Trump has unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his turbulent effort to reshape international commerce. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10 percent from the duties Trump imposed in April, easing the worst fears of investors after the president had previously said they could double. Yet his move to raise tariffs on some Canadian goods to 35 percent threatens to inject fresh tensions into an already strained relationship, while nations such as Switzerland and New Zealand also saw increased
RSS