NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The nation's new chief accounting regulator, William McDonough, is issuing a stern warning to accountants in his first public policy address.

"I expect that you, as members of a regulated profession, know what the rules are. I expect that you are following those rules, both in their letter and their spirit," McDonough planned to tell a gathering of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants Tuesday morning, according to his prepared text.

"If you depart from those expectations -- that is, if you break the rules, if you ignore the spirit of the law even while meeting the letter -- woe be unto you. There will be consequences, and they will be grave," McDonough wrote.

McDonough is chairman of the Public Accounting Oversight Board, the new private-sector body created by Congress to oversee audits of public companies in the aftermath of the financial scandal at Enron, which led to the prosecution of Arthur Andersen, up until then a top-tier accounting firm.

"I can easily imagine the chill that must have touched your spines with the demise of Arthur Andersen," McDonough's text said. "Those corporate collapses left the impression -- not just with investors, but ordinary Americans and even the world -- that accountants are not to be trusted, that they will help unscrupulous executives cook the books, just for a piece of silver.

"You and I know that impression is wrong," the text said.

McDonough reminded accountants that they must register with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and that annual inspections of large accounting firms will begin next year.