Final answer:
Auditors are responsible for complying with ethics, maintaining professional skepticism and judgment, and possessing the needed skills, but not for ensuring audits are efficient and profitable.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to the Principles Underlying An Audit Conducted in Accordance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards, auditors are responsible for a number of professional obligations. They must comply with relevant ethical requirements, maintain professional skepticism and exercise professional judgment, and have appropriate competence and capabilities to perform the audit. However, their responsibility does not include planning audits to be efficient and profitable, as their main goal is to ensure accuracy and reliability of financial reporting rather than focusing on the profitability of the audit process itself.
These principles are foundational to the trust placed in the auditing process by investors, companies, and the wider public. The fall of Lehman Brothers illustrates the consequences of a breakdown in corporate governance and the failure of auditors and other institutions to provide accurate financial information. The role of auditors is to verify that a company's financial records are reasonable without being influenced by profit motives.