KPMG and other leading accountancy firms face serious questions over their work with failed construction firm Carillion PLC after making millions of pounds out of their relationships with the company, British lawmakers said yesterday.
Lawmakers from two parliamentary committees examining the collapse of Carillion said that KPMG had earned £29.4 million (US$41 million) from auditing the contractor’s accounts since the company was founded in 1999.
The firm signed off on Carillion’s 2016 accounts, shortly before the construction and outsourcing company announced a string of profit warnings.
Carillion collapsed last month with debts of more than £2 billion.
“KPMG has serious questions to answer about the collapse of Carillion. Either KPMG failed to spot the warning signs, or its judgement was clouded by its cozy relationship with the company and the multi-million pound fees it received,” British Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee Chair Rachel Reeves said. “KPMG should, as a bare minimum, review its processes and explain what went wrong.”
KPMG said it would assist the inquiry into the failure of Carillion, and will be questioned by the lawmakers on Thursday next week.
“We are committed to building public trust in audit. We take the questions that have been asked of our profession in recent weeks very seriously and we welcome the opportunity to appear before the joint committee,” KPMG said in a statement.
Lawmakers published responses from the “Big Four” accountancy firms to inquiries on their involvement with Carillion yesterday, saying that PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY had earned £71 million since 2008 on work related to the firm.
British lawmaker Frank Field, who chairs the Work and Pensions Select Committee, said it was “telling” that PwC was appointed to liquidate the firm, as the other three firms would have had immediate conflicts of interest.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last