Over the years, the news has covered stories of corporate scandals involving unethical accounting practices ethics. These unethical corporate actions have had a significant negative impact on the shareholders, investors, employees of these companies, and the entire U.S. economy. Most of these scandals would have been avoided if independent audits of these companies had been conducted ethically. With this in mind, two corporate scandals will be examined further to understand that an auditor could face ethical dilemmas if independence and objectivity are not part of the audit process . An auditor must remain objective at all times. Maire Loughran, a certified public accountant and university professor, explains that “objectivity means the ability to examine the facts presented by the client and examine them without preconceived ideas or prejudices” (52). In other words, an auditor must exercise the ability to review information in a non-subjective manner and perform audit work without conflicts of interest. Many cases have occurred where objectivity was not present when carrying out audits, for example the case of Bernard Madoff's auditor, David G. Friehling, of the firm Friehling & Horowitz, illustrates this well. In 2009, William K. Rashbaum and Diana B. Henriques, both journalists for the New York Times, reported in the online version of their newspaper: The civil complaint filed by the SEC, in addition to citing the misleading audits, accused Mr. Friehling collected “ill-gotten gains” in the form of substantial audit fees – about $186,000 a year – from the Madoff firm and millions of dollars… he and his family maintained accounts with Mr. Madoff… Mr. Friehling "essentially sold his license... for over 17 years... middle of paper... and unethical behavior, on the unethical side." An auditor must follow, respect and comply with the standards, rules and regulations of his profession, as these will help him recognize when independence and objectivity would be compromised. Works Cited Gray, Iain and Stuart Manson. The audit process: principles, practices and cases. London: Thomson Learning, 2008. Print.Holt, Michael F. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Overview and Implementation Procedures. Oxford: CIMA Publishing, 2006. Print. Loughran, Mayor. Auditing for dummies. Hoboken: Wiley Publishing, 2010. Print. Madura, Jeff. Financial markets and institutions. Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Rashbaum, William K., Diana B. Henriques. "Madoff's accountant arrested and charged with securities fraud." The New York Times. The New York Times, March 18, 2009. Web. December 3. 2011.