The Supreme Court's decision this year in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund (“Omnicare”), clarified the standards for attaching liability to opinions that appear in corporate disclosures.
This article considers auditors' opinions under Omnicare, and concludes that an auditor should be subject to liability only where he or she does not believe the opinion, or where the opinion omits from the audit report material information that is required to be stated under Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) standards.