Impact of the 1990 AICPA-FTC Consent Decree

Over a decade has passed since in 1990, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) entered into a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to remove the AICPA's professional ethics prohibitions against members marketing their professional services. Shortly afterwards, we established in a base-line study of the Association of Accounting Marketing (AAM) members' opinions on the effectiveness and use of the activities covered by the decree. We have followed up ten years later to measure what impact, if any, the decree has had. We found there was very little initial impact due to state and local prohibitions still in place through local professional ethics laws and regulations. Ten years later, members viewed their firms as more aggressive in late 2000 than before the 1990 decree, marketing activities had increased by newer firms, but not by older firms, and the use of the covered activities had increased some, but not by as much as marketers had originally hoped or planned. In addition, we surveyed state regulators in 2001 and confirmed the members' assertions that many regulators had not come into compliance with the decree. Regulator attitudes ranged from voluntary openness and 100% compliance, to stonewalling and hostility, with one state responding “what decree?” Clearly, the decree had limited impact and effectiveness in removing barriers to CPA marketing activities.