Courts are increasingly treating accountants as fiduciaries, creating significant risk that they — and their insurers — may not realize they face.
Outside accountants – including auditors, those providing other attestation and compilation services, tax preparers and even mere advisers – are increasingly facing allegations that they served their clients in a fiduciary capacity. These are not simply idle observations: In general, they are made by clients and third parties seeking to obtain monetary damages from the accountants as a result of, inter alia, errors in financial reporting, tax positions that are subsequently rejected by the IRS or other authorities and losses incurred by clients or third parties following advice presented by the accountants. The reason adverse parties seek to impute fiduciary obligations to the accountants is that this offers them the opportunity to seek larger settlements or court-imposed awards, if the defending accountants are found liable. Fiduciary duties pose major risk for accountants and for those writing insurance coverage for them. Click on the link to read the full article on accountant fiduciary duty considerations, “Do Accountants Face Risk as Fiduciaries?“