Deborah Harrington, a Deloitte spokeswoman, said regulators requested that the firm revise the first press release it put out. The second release omitted some disputed statements.

Deloitte, the U.S. accounting branch of Big Four accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Tuesday agreed to pay $50 million to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it failed to detect fraud at Adelphia. It was the largest fine ever imposed on an auditing firm.

Adelphia filed for bankruptcy in 2002 after a massive accounting scandal.

Deloitte also agreed to pay $375,000 to settle charges that it failed to uncover fraud at Just for Feet, which filed for bankruptcy in 1999.

In its original press release on the two settlements, Deloitte blamed its clients and said that "the primary basis of the SEC's claim is that the wrongdoing by the client and certain members of its management should have been uncovered, despite their collusion in some instances with others specifically to deceive the external auditors."

Regulators took exception because two SEC orders had instead found that Deloitte had chosen not to explore warning signs or had backed down under pressure when it completed audits of the two longtime clients.

"The SEC staff here very much disagrees with Deloitte's characterization of what our case today is about," said Helene Glotzer, an SEC enforcement attorney who helped bring the Adelphia case, after reading Deloitte's initial statement.

Deloitte revised its statement to say that "the primary basis of the SEC's claim is that the audits were deficient and failed to uncover fraud committed by the companies and certain members of their management in the face of identified risks."

However, the auditing firm continued to publish a statement by Chief Executive James Quigley, who said that "these cases raise a larger issue facing the auditing profession. Among our most significant challenges is the early detection of fraud, particularly when the client, its management and others collude specifically to deceive a company's external auditors."

The SEC remains concerned that Deloitte is using its public-relations machine to cast the Adelphia audit in a more favorable light.

"Deloitte was not deceived in this case," said Mark Schonfeld, the director of the SEC's Northeast regional office, after reading the revised press release. "The findings in the order show that the relevant information was right in front of their eyes. Deloitte just didn't do its job, plain and simple. They didn't just miss red flags. They pulled the flag over their head and then claimed they couldn't see."

Deloitte settled the SEC charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing, language has long been used in SEC settlements in order to avoid playing into the hands of plaintiffs in private lawsuits. However, if the SEC believes a company is actively denying wrongdoing, that could potentially violate a settlement or at least create a sense of mistrust.