tlock, Tanlu, and Bazerman (18) point out, "Conflict of interest increases as financial incentives and professional obligations clash. The greater the incentives created for professionals to act against their obligations to society or to their clients, the greater the expected deviation from professionally defined normative behavior will be." Although financial professionals often deny the existence of conflicts of interest, they are very real, and they are likely to "lead professionals both to increase their defense of the ethical rectitude of their profession and to resist changes that could actually resolve the conflict of interest" (Moore, Tetlock, Tanlu, and Bazerman 18).
The forms that conflict of interest can take are many, but a common pathway is through "the performance of substantial attestation and assurance services other than financial audit (e.g. non-audit services)," particularly if the fees paid to auditors are significantly above the usual rate (Rezaee 293). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires a number of compliance criteria intended to ensure auditor independence, including being subject to oversight, complying with professional audit standards, keeping audit work papers for a minimum of seven years, having audits re-reviewed by second partners, rotating the audit partners at least once each five years, reporting regularly to the audit committee, and desisting from offering such non-audit services as "bookkeeping, system design, and internal audit outsourcing to public audit clients" (Rezaee 293).
The psychology of conflict of interest suggests that once a conflict of interest exists, it is difficult for the professional to resist giving in to it. According to Moore and Lowenstein (190), "when professional responsibilities clash with self-interest, the two motives tend to be processed differently," with self-interest exerting "a more automatic influence than do professional responsibilities...