Office Depot 2010 Annual Report Download - page 27

REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
To the Board of Directors and Stockholders of Office Depot, Inc.:
We have audited the internal control over financial reporting of Office Depot, Inc. and subsidiaries (the
“Company”) as of December 25, 2010, based on criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework
issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. The Company’s
management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its
assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in the accompanying
Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion
on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audit.
We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
(United States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about
whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects. Our audit
included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material
weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the
assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe
that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.
A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed by, or under the supervision of, the
company’s principal executive and principal financial officers, or persons performing similar functions, and
effected by the company’s board of directors, management, and other personnel to provide reasonable assurance
regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in
accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting
includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail,
accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable
assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance
with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made
only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable
assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the
company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.
Because of the inherent limitations of internal control over financial reporting, including the possibility of
collusion or improper management override of controls, material misstatements due to error or fraud may not be
prevented or detected on a timely basis. Also, projections of any evaluation of the effectiveness of the internal
control over financial reporting to future periods are subject to the risk that the controls may become inadequate
because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may
deteriorate.
In our report dated February 22, 2011, we expressed an unqualified opinion on internal control over financial
reporting. As described in the following paragraph, a material weakness was subsequently identified as a result of
the restatement of the previously issued financial statements. Accordingly, management has revised its
assessment about the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting and our present
opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 25, 2010,
as expressed herein, is different from that expressed in our previous report.
A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting,
such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the company’s annual or interim
financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. The following material weakness has
been identified and included in management’s assessment: deficiencies in the operating effectiveness of the
Company’s internal controls over accounting for the income tax implications of complex transactions. This
26