By Robert Cox ( April 3, 2018, 3:21 PM EDT) -- A defense of an audit engagement partner that he or she cannot be personally liable for deficient work the partner did not personally perform is no longer viable after a recent decision by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. An engagement partner who delegates audit work to assistants cannot limit his or her liability for audit failures to only audit work that the auditor personally performed, such as planning the audit and supervising the work of other members of the engagement team. The engagement partner acts throughout the audit as the auditor with final responsibility for the audit and must engage in a continuous process of gathering, updating and analyzing information throughout the audit. If the partner identifies shortcomings in the audit, he or she is responsible for directing his or her assistants to address them or personally perform necessary procedures to obtain the required audit evidence....