USA Today reports that Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young will not appeal a six-month bar on signing new audit clients obtained by the SEC. The suspension was part of a 69-page decision by Chief Administrative Law Judge Brenda P. Murray, who called E&Y "reckless," "highly unreasonable" and "negligent" in forming a business venture with an audit client, PeopleSoft, in the 1990s. A copy of the decision is available here.

In her decision, Judge Murray concluded that E&Y would likely commit future violations absent an explicit directive to cease and desist, and added that "the evidence shows that [E&Y] has an utter disdain for the Commission’s rules and regulations on auditor independence."