It's awfully quiet out there
We got a very quiet email notifying us that the tribunal report had been published, but apart from Accountancy Age and the Australian no other media outlet seems to have picked up on the story.
As the first ruling to come out of the new FRC/AIDB structure, the Mayflower case will set the tone for what is likely to follow. In this instance, lawyers for Donnelly and PwC have criticised the AIDB's evidence and use of expert witnesses.
I'm not a lawyer, but after trawling through the various documents, it strikes me that there was there was a lot of skullduggery and corner-cutting going on that involved several (non-accountant?) finance executives at Mayflower. Although the AIDB did take up complaints against against the auditor and FD, nearly three years later, only a divisional financial controller ends up getting disciplined. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
For the spreadsheet community, however, the Mayflower/TransBus case throws up a classic example of how Excel can be used to assist financial wrong-doing, which I've covered in a separate story.
John Stokdyk
Technology editor
AccountingWEB.co.uk
Experts
One part of the report that I found fascinating was the commentary on the various experts - some rather scathing comments about one of them in particular. It also raised a very important point as to whether it was appropriate for one of the investigators also then to give expert evidence.