Stephen Calkins, an antitrust expert at Wayne State, agreed that the world's top three accounting firms - Deloitte & Touche LLP, Ernst & Young LLP, and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP - need a healthy KPMG to reassure Washington that there is competition in the industry. "Without KPMG, "life would be very awkward for the Big 3 accounting firms," Calkins told Bloomberg News.