Most auditors and CFOs are decidedly chilly to increasing rotation requirements. "...[W]e believe mandatory rotation could have significant adverse consequences that should be carefully weighed," reads a statement from the accounting firm BDO USA. "These include the new auditor's steep learning curve in gaining knowledge of the company's business, disruption within the company, increased costs, and a greater propensity for fraud as has been found in some studies."

Regulations already in place -- including those requiring audit partner rotation and those limiting the non-audit work that audit firms can engage in -- do much to ensure auditor independence, says Joseph Slattery, executive vice president and chief financial officer with TranS1 Inc., a Wilmington, N.C.-based medical device company. "The continual turnover in the team creates a good bit of distance," Slattery says.

Audit team members already have a significant incentive to maintain their integrity and independence, Slattery adds. "If I'm a partner in an accounting firm, the last thing I need is for my firm to lose an account because I made a mistake or did something improper."

And certainly, the partner rotation creates more work for both the audit firm and TranS1, Slattery notes. "Every time the partner changes, it's an exercise." Members of his staff need to take time to bring the new partner up to speed on the company and its industry.

Adding a requirement that the entire audit firm periodically remove themselves from a client engagement would place even more of a burden on Slattery's small finance staff. "I would have to plan for that and have extra staff that would only be needed every couple of years," he says.