Auditor liability for electronic commerce transaction assurance: The CPA/CA WebTrust

The AICPA and CICA have developed a new and promising assurance service for CPAs/CAs to offer clients-the CPA/CA WebTrust, The development and deployment of the CPA/CA WebTrust, however, are done in a high litigation risk enviromnent. No U.S. legal case has yet been reported which addresses directly the liability of accountants to nonclients for disseminating misleading financial or business information over a computer network; The rule that can be distilled from several related legal cases is that one who negligently disseminates misleading financial or other information over a public medium will be immune from a negligence claim, However,the current U.S. legal environment is characterized by a high level of uncertainty. Several risk management strategies may be adopted by WebTrust providers to minimize litigation risk.