At least in the UK, publicly traded companies must have their accounts independently audited. But they're also allowed to hire those independent auditors to provide consulting services.
This presents a pretty big conflict of interests - a company making £££ in consulting fees isn't going to want to sour the business relationship by being a hardass during the audit.
Essentially every time there's a major fraud or accounting scandal, it'll turn out the auditors were also retained as consultants.
So the consulting firms are the ones being shaken down? Or what? I don't see how that's a "shakedown" for the company as if they are in compliance there's no need for them to pay for the "consulting shakedown" for better treatment. Unless you are talking at a systemic level where, in order to compete, companies HAVE to operate out-of-compliance and use these consulting arrangements in order to prevent being exposed.
I think op just meant that they do bad work for exorbitant prices.
And gp showed some of the pressures that can drive firms to buy optional services from consulting firms: desire to maintain a "good relationship" or possibly just discounting and bundling.
Also, the big consulting firms are generally known for aggressive upselling. It's often a core part of their business model. Once you've got em on the hook...
So, TLDR: Not shakedown as in extortion, shakedown as in bad service for a bad price.
Is being "in compliance" a guarantee of a clean audit? If so, is the suggestion that apparently corrupt audit firms are only corrupt in one direction? That seems unlikely.
This used to happen in the US as well. Remember Arthur Andersen? They provided auditing as well as consultancy - and the scandals (not sure if it was Enron) broke them. Memory fails me at the moment to recollect if a law was passed to keep those functions separate.
This presents a pretty big conflict of interests - a company making £££ in consulting fees isn't going to want to sour the business relationship by being a hardass during the audit.
Essentially every time there's a major fraud or accounting scandal, it'll turn out the auditors were also retained as consultants.