If your auditor is Andersen, best not to lose a board member in unexplained circumstances―particularly when he is head of the board's audit committee. This week America's Securities and Exchange Commission asked Omnicom, the world's third-biggest advertising group, for information relating to the resignation last month of Robert Callander, a board member for ten years, and of a second board member earlier in the year. For a company whose business is marketing and public relations, Omnicom looks unhappily in need of the services it dispenses to others. The saga at Omnicom began after an article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that, while not infringing American accounting standards, the company flattered its accounts. The article, retorted John Wren, Omnicom's boss, was full of "improper innuendoes"; there was nothing, he said, out of line in the group's reporting. Too late: Omnicom's share price fell by a third over the next two days.
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