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‘Not before time’
Andrew Tyrie is right on the money here and not just with respect to HBOS.
Punishment
Can't really see any auditors being banged up for this, so even if they eventually find KPMG responsible what sort of punishment is going to make a difference?
Absolutely correct
Just so and, guess what, it'll happen again - and again ....
Can't really see any auditors being banged up for this, so even if they eventually find KPMG responsible what sort of punishment is going to make a difference?
Whistleblower should give evidence
According to wikipedia..
" In November 2004 Moore was dismissed by HBOS. He claimed this was because he had told HBOS's board that the bank was taking excessive risks with its aggressive sales culture which was out of balance with its systems and controls. He passed his concerns about HBOS to the FSA, who had it investigated by KPMG, whose conclusion, that HBOS had appropriate risk controls in place, was accepted by the FSA.[1][2] Following his dismissal the bank replaced him with a retail sales manager."
source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moore_%28banking_manager%29
There was a risk that some auditors in times long gone past were "too close" to the management of the companies that they audited ... they might have mistakenly thought that they were working for management rather than for the shareholders.
Timeline
HSBC demise 2008, 8 years on, yes 8 years on, someone is brave enough to query one of the Big fours due diligence, going concern concept and work done, or are they its only a preliminary investigation. Yet again no one wants to rock the boat.
I am neutral on this as I say its impossible to Audit a global bank, however dont no one or any organisation query the quality of my work, and if you do please wait at least 8 years to start a 'preliminary investigation'.
Extract above
The investigation will focus on KPMG’s use of the going concern assumption for HBOS’s 2007 accounts, and whether the Big Four firm needed to disclose concerns about the bank’s continued sustainability in the financial statements.
True and Fair?
The real scandal where all of the big four are concerned is that if auditing the banks had been correctly undertaken, many of the problems that cost shareholders lost billions might have at least been mitigated if not prevented.
As they're investigating events before the FRC existed.
They might as well investigate the South Sea Bubble while they're at it.
Pointless waste of resources.
Files no longer in existence ?
Do the Big Four still have a policy of destroying their audit files after signing off ?
Or perhaps the files will be lost in a huge underground archive ?