TOKYO -- Ernst & Young ShinNihon, the auditing firm hit by administrative penalties over Toshiba's financial window-dressing, has completed its statutory obligations imposed by the Japanese regulator.

For over a year, the Tokyo-based accounting firm has taken a series of measures, such as reshuffling its management team and urging poorly performing accountants to retire, to improve its audit quality and regain public trust. Although the completion of the penalty process could be seen as a milestone for the auditor's regeneration, it still has many problems, including losing corporate client contracts.

EY ShinNihon was prohibited from making new service contracts for three months and hit with a fine of 2.1 billion yen ($17.5 million) under administrative penalties imposed by the Financial Services Agency in December 2015. At the same time, the accountant was obliged to submit a report on progress in improving its operations every three months. Since concrete results of the audit company's improvement efforts are difficult to gauge from outside, the regulator's evaluation was the focus of attention among client companies and investors with regard to the accountant's improvement. read the rest here