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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Auditing firm Deloitte & Touche was criticized by the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board on Monday for lack of quality control in audits. The industry overseer charged the firm had a culture of placing too much faith in the officials of companies it audits.

In a report, the board chided Deloitte for failure to challenge management representation in several areas. It also cited Deloitte auditors’ acceptance of management assertion that accounting was proper and consistent with accounting rules without verification.

The board wrote the report in 2008 based on audits it made of Deloitte in 2007. However, rules stipulate that the findings be kept confidential for a year and could only be released if the company fails to make sufficient progress in correcting its deficiencies.

One of the companies that Deloitte audited was involved in mortgage investments. The board observed that Deloitte failed to properly assess the value of mortgage-backed securities, accounting for delinquent loans and treatment of swaps, which are financial instruments that are a form of derivative.

The board was created by the Sarbanes-Oxley law in 2002 in response to the Enron and WorldCom failures. It is the first time that the board released a report on a major company that audits firms listed on the stock markets. Deloitte is one of the big four firms that audit a majority of big companies in the U.S.

Deloitte Chief Executive Joe Echevarria said that the company is committed to the highest standard of audit quality. He expressed confidence in Deloitte auditors but agreed there are areas in which it can improve.

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Wilmington, DE, United States (AHN) – American solar panel maker Solyndra has filed for bankruptcy. It is the third solar firm since August to seek court protection from creditors.

Solyndra filed a Chapter 11 petition with a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, DE, after it amassed debts of $1 billion. However, it still has assets of about the same amount.

The California-based company shuttered on Aug. 31 and laid off its 1,100 workers. It suffered from losses due to competition from larger, foreign manufacturers that flooded the American market with solar panels, causing prices to drop.

On Labor Day, U.S. Rep. Pete Stark appealed to Solyndra to compensate the 1,100 dismissed employees. Stark, in a letter to Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Brian Harrison, said the summary dismissal of the workers without warning was reckless, irresponsible and heartless. The legislator hinted the layoffs could be illegal.

Solyndra, which did not give the mandatory 90-day warning for layoffs, said the law provides exemption from compliance with that requirement for companies that continue to attempt to line up financing to the day they closed.

The sudden dismissal prompted a former research engineer of the solar-panel maker to file a lawsuit on Friday against Solyndra.

Solyndra borrowed $535 million from the Energy Department loan guarantee program. The loan was criticized by Republican lawmakers, leading to an investigation this year by a subcommittee of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee of the loan guarantee.

Solyndra retained 113 workers to help the debtors with restructuring efforts. With the reduction of its workforce, Solyndra’s payroll will be drastically reduced to $650,000 bi-weekly from $3.5 million.

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – In a rare Sunday session, the Canadian Senate approved back-to-work legislation for striking Canada Post employees.

The passing of the measure would result in the resumption of regular mail service throughout Canada, ending the one-month old strike by mail carriers and other postal employees belonging to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

Governor General David Lloyd Johnston is expected to give royal assent to the Senate approval, which would force about 50,000 Canada Post workers to resume their duties by Tuesday or 24 hours after the governor general gives his assent.

Before the senate approval, the House of Commons passed Bill C-6 on Saturday night after 50 hours of continuous debate. The bill, introduced by Labor Minister Lisa Raitt, was approved without changes.

The CUPW assured the Senate that the postal workers would obey the legislation and return to their jobs.

The legislation would end 12 days of rotating strikes held by the CUPW. The job walk off affected Canada Post offices in major Canadian cities, leading the government agency to reduce mail delivery services to just thrice a week.

Despite the strike and lock out, the postal employees fulfilled their promise to deliver unemployment and social security checks to Canadians.

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Luxembourg City, Luxembourg (AHN) – European finance ministers delayed on Monday the release of the second tranche of Greece’s bailout until July. After seven hours of discussion, the ministers set as a condition for the release the approval by the Greek Parliament of spending cuts and financial reforms, including a large-scale asset privatization program.

The release of the second part of the Greek loan – part of the $257 billion (110 billion euros) EU and IMF aid package – is expected to be approved by the ministers in their meeting this week at Luxembourg.

Among the measures initiated by the embattled Greek government that would lead to the EU and IMF approval of the loan is the reshuffling by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou of his cabinet on Friday. Leading the revamp was the appointment of former Defense Minister Evangelos Venizelos as finance minister, replacing George Papaconstantinou.

Venizelos, who arrived for the Luxembourg meeting, pledged Greece’s commitment to the financial assistance program from EU and IMF.

Papandreou admitted that Greece needs a second international bailout of $157 billion, which is as large as last year’s bailout, to avoid a debt default. He appealed on Thursday to the Greek parliament for a vote of confidence as the legislators prepare to cast their crucial ballot on Tuesday.

Despite the indications of a second bailout, British banks wary of a second bailout threatened to pull billions of dollars from the eurozone.

London Mayor Boris Johnson likewise pushed for Britain not to contribute to the second bailout. The mayor said Greece should instead default on its debts and leave the euro. Johnson blames the euro’s recent trouble, caused by large debts of three eurozone members, for worsening the financial crisis. He urged Chancellor George Osborne to stop throwing British taxpayers’ money after bad investments.

Although British ministers are not in favor of financing the new loan to Greece, the coalition could not avoid financial involvement in the Greek bailout because of European finance rules.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Obama administration has found an unexpected ally in a ratings agency in the White House’s battle with Republican legislators over spending cuts and hiking the federal debt limit. On Thursday, Moody’s warned that it may downgrade Washington’s credit rating if the U.S. debt ceiling is not hiked soon.

Moody’s said that the U.S. credit rating could downgraded because of a very small, but increasing risk of a short-lived default, which would likely translate into higher interest rates at a time when the country’s recovery is again on the slow lane.

The ratings agency anticipated there would be a political battle between the Obama administration and Republican legislators before the debt ceiling would be lifted, but Moody’s said that it failed to consider the worsening conflicting positions between the two parties. Washington wanted to raise the debt limit to $16.7 trillion from the current $14.3 trillion, but with no major spending cuts.

Moody’s warning came on the heels of a lower outlook by Standard & Poor’s of the AAA U.S. debt rating to negative from stable because of the political wrangling.

The House voted on Tuesday not to hike the federal debt limit without major spending cuts. At the Wednesday White House meeting of Republican legislators with U.S. President Barack Obama, the legislators asked the administration for a detailed plan on budget cuts to solve the impasse.

House Speaker John Boehner justified the lower house’s refusal to give in to Obama’s request because raising the debt limit beyond spending cuts would cost jobs for Americans. Obama, however, warned that failure to hike the debt limit soon would lead to dire consequences for the fragile, but recovering U.S. economy.

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Tokyo, Japan (AHN) – Sony Corporation has temporarily suspended on Wednesday its webpages in Canada, Thailand, Indonesia and Greece following another unauthorized intrusion into its portal.

The fresh hacking involved the theft of personal data of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications in Canada. The hackers stole 2,000 names, phone numbers and email addresses, but failed to get any credit card details.

They also altered a Sony webpage in Thailand to make it easier to send phishing email and stole web codes from Sony’s music unit’s portal in Indonesia. The Greek intrusion affected about 8,500 customers’ information.

Sony said the hacked websites were externally hosted by third parties and not linked to its main network.

The fresh attack followed last month’s hits on Sony’s network, which involved the data of over 100 million customers. Besides crippling Sony’s PlayStation Network, last month’s cyber attack cost the Japanese firm, which expects a third year of loss, $171 million (JPY 4 billion).

The intrusions also places doubt on Sony’s online security systems. Following the fresh round of hacking incident, Sony’s shares fell 1.5 percent on Wednesday at the Tokyo trading floor.

Sony said it is investigating if the fresh attacks on its webpages are linked to last month’s hacking into the company’s PlayStation Network. The company said it has so far found no evidence connecting the two incidents.

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Athens, Greece (AHN) – The Greek government is preparing tougher belt-tightening measures as it attempts to meet the terms of the country’s $110 billion (EUR 78 billion) bailout.

Prime Minister George Papandreou rejected debt restructuring ahead of a Monday cabinet meeting to tackle austerity measures, which includes tax hikes and sale of government assets.

Papandreou’s policy is in line with the European Central Bank stand that did not favor a debt restructuring for Greece. However, the drastic wage cut proposal may lead to more civil unrest among public employees. A study published on Sunday found that 80 percent of Greeks are not willing to make any more sacrifices for the country to enjoy further European Union and International Monetary Fund support for the bailout.

Experts opined that Greece is so mired in a debt spiral that more austerity measures would cause further recession and drastic drops in tax revenues. They warned that these economic consequences are self-reinforcing and very difficult to recover from.

While the prime minister is ready to fast track a $70.4 billion (EUR 50 billion) privatization program to raise more money to pay off the country’s mountain of debt, Papandreou said the government will keep its holdings in water and electricity utilities.

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Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines (AHN) – The Philippine National Food Authority’s losses reached $2.3 billion (PHP 100 billion) over a 10-year period, according to a report on the grains agency recently released by the 2009 Commission on Audit.

COA said the losses were incurred because of excessive imports at a time when price was high and the products were sold low. The audit agency also blamed the long storage period of rice for the losses.

Because of these policies, the sale of rice and collection of fees by the NFA was not enough to cover the agency’s operations, which led officials to borrow to finance NFA’s operations and pay its debts. NFA’s debt has ballooned to $4.1 billion (PHP 177 billion).

Current NFA Administrator Angelito Banayo described the previous administration’s excessive rice imports policy as tantamount to smuggling because buyers of the cheap rice at 58 cents (PHP 25) a kilo did not pay taxes on the grains since it was imported by a government agency.

For the years 2000 to 2009, NFA registered net losses of $2.3 billion, while for the same period it received a $780 million (PHP 33.7 billion) subsidy from the national government.

The COA report recommended for NFA to maximize its income and minimize costs to reduce the agency’s losses.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – The pay gap between public and private sector employees in Britain widened further from 2008 to 2010, according to a study by British think tank Policy Exchange released over the weekend.

According to the report, a government sports and leisure assistant got an average pay hike of 13.5 percent during the three-year period, while a worker in a private company with a similar job go only an average pay hike of 12.2 percent.

Worse off were private school teachers who even got a 12 percent pay cut, while their public school counterparts received a salary adjustment of 2.1 percent.

Reckoned on an hourly basis, the hourly rate of a mid-income public employee was $20.31 (GBP 13.54), while that of a private sector worker was about $15.09 (GBP 10.06).

However, certain private sector high earners such as bankers, football players and television stars have salaries that were much higher than their public counterparts.

Union officials however are downplaying the Policy Exchange study citing the return of the culture of large city bonuses, while council staff are going through job reductions.

Private company workers, though are expected to catch up because state workers’ pay is frozen until 2008 as Britain reduces its budget deficit and debt. Chancellor George Osborne has sought at least a two-year nationwide wage freeze for public workers and to reform pension systems for state workers.

The only exception to the rule of the larger pay hike was in Yorkshire. The pay disparity was particularly felt in Wales and the northwest.

According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 20.4 percent of U.K.’s population are employed in the public sector. The number had actually gone down from 21.1 percent and is expected to be further reduced because of the coalition government’s austerity measures.

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Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines (AHN) – The Employers Confederation of the Philippines rejected the $1.75 (PHP 75) daily wage increase sought by Metro Manila workers, but instead offered a paltry $0.30 (PHP 13.35) hike.

ECOP President Edgardo Lacson said Wednesday at the 32nd National Conference of Employers that the country’s businesses could not afford the $1.75 asked by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.

Lacson warned that if the government gives in to workers’ demand to that level of wage adjustment, there could be massive layoffs and business closures.

He said aside from the wage hike, Philippine employers must also contend with the impact of political instability in North Africa and the Middle East, which had resulted in higher oil prices, plus the credit defaults in Europe, which also affected local business. They also have to cope with rising water and electric rates.

Lacson added that even before a wage hike order is issued by the National Wage Board. 400 Japanese companies operating in the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quewzon have started to lay off workers. The firms are exporters of car parts and electronic components sources from Japan and are affected by the parts shortage caused by the March 11 earthquake that hit Japan.

Aside from offering $0.30 daily wage increase, Lacson said employers are willing to give short-term forms of relief to workers through allowances and other non-wage benefits. Lacson said the $0.30 offer was the erosion rate of the peso’s purchasing power in the national capital region.

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