Is there an employment "conflict of interest" policy for accounting firms?

Question

For instance, let's say that you own 100 shares of American Express stock. And let's say that you want to work for PriceWaterhouseCoopers - which is a big accounting firm in the United States. Let's also say that American Express is a client of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Will you have to sell all of your American Express stock before you can be a PriceWaterhouseCoopers employee?

Answer 1

There will definitely be an independence clause in your employment contract, but it also depends on the tolerance level set by your country's laws and statutes. If you own shares in Amex you definitely cannot be on the audit engagement team auditing Amex. However some a/cg firms avoid controversy so much that they prohibit all staff from owning shares in all clients, whether or not they are on that engagement team. And they make the employees sign a declaration at time of joining and annually after that. So if you want to hang on to your shares you should check with them before joining that audit firm. Some allow you to own a small %age of the shares if you're not on the engagement team.