LONDON - Britain’s “Big Four” accounting firms must ringfence auditing from their consultancy work, the country’s competition watchdog said on Thursday in a response to book-keeping failures such as at construction company Carillion and retailer BHS.
Exemplifying the issue, regulators found PwC’s lead auditor of BHS spent two hours on its 2014 audit and 31 hours on more lucrative non-audit work, leaving the bulk of auditing work to juniors. PwC was fined a record 6.5 million pounds for its shortcomings. The CMA noted “difficulties with an immediate global structural split”, given the Big Four are international and Britain can only intervene in the UK.
Regulators could allow “initial limited exceptions” to the joint audit rule for the biggest, most complex listed companies, the CMA said in a nod to a suggestion from lawmakers.
RT : UK watchdog orders ringfencing of Big Four audit business
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