International firm owns up to breach of ethics after staff leaked confidential Optus information while bidding for telco contract

KPMG has admitted to another breach of ethics after its staff leaked Optus’ confidential information to colleagues bidding for an audit contract with Telstra.

The consulting firm’s executives also surveilled a whistleblower’s laptop and dismissed the individual as someone with “workplace grievances”, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Friday.

The internal leaks first became public when senator Deborah O’Neill shared the whistleblower’s testimony under parliamentary privilege in a speech on 24 March.

KPMG initially said the allegations had not been substantiated but in subsequent weeks determined partners had leaked Lendlease’s confidential information and another partner had made an inappropriate remark suggesting colleagues look at Dexus’ confidential information.

On Friday, KPMG’s chair, Martin Sheppard, publicly confirmed for the first time that staff who audited Optus shared unredacted confidential information to the team that was pursuing the audit contract for Telstra, a competitor telco.

“Information moving through an ethical divider … shouldn’t have moved through that divider,” he said at the parliamentary joint committee public hearing in Canberra.

KPMG’s former chief executive, Andrew Yates, said the confirmation of the Optus leak motivated his decision to resign in May.

“There was evidence to support some of the whistleblower...

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