It’s a dead-heat in the competition for KPMG’s worst sin. The contenders are firstly, that it leaked confidential client information to win new corporate accounts, and secondly, its cascading attempts to cover up the scandal.
It has taken more than two years and the tenacity of a relentless whistleblower for the first serious signs of sunlight’s antiseptic to be applied to what is a growing list of alleged instances in which private information of KPMG clients was used/abused to win other large service contracts, including auditing work.
But KPMG’s ability to audit its own behaviour has come up woefully short.
How can it offer services it markets to customers to advise on the establishment and robust working of their whistleblower functions, when its own structure has failed epically?
Thanks to the snowballing, albeit belated, interest among lawmakers and regulators now on board to dig up KPMG’s weeds, we won’t need to rely on the firm’s own introspection.
Labor senator Deborah O’Neill has found a worthy behavioral lightning rod for the parliamentary committee on financial services she chairs. Already she is warning the firm about seeking the legal cover of professional privilege to avoid uncovering the depths of the scandal.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has said it will undertake its own investigation, and so will the Tax Practitioners Board and Chartered Accountants ANZ.
It could be years before this scandal is fully picked over and the last of...
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