PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd

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PricewaterhouseCoopers, trading as PwC, is a multi-national professional services network headquartered in London. It is the 2nd-largest professional services firm in the world,ref and is one of the "Big Four" auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and KPMG.ref

The PwC network is co-ordinated by PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd (PwCIL),OpenCorporates-sm.svg a private company limited by guarantee under English law.ref The network consists of member firms which are separate legal entities, which are financially and legally independent.

Financial Reporting Council's Audit Quality:[1]

Corporate Political Engagement Rating:[2] Transparency International    B  

People

David Kelly

Ex-People

  • Jun.21.2018: Howzat? Yorkshire’s boss is not ready to walk just yet. Nine days on from his £325,000 fine and 15-year audit ban by the Financial Reporting Council, tarnished beancounter Steve Denison is clinging on at the place that nurtured cricketing greats such as Geoffrey Boycott and Fred Trueman. The former PWC partner who admitted misconduct in his audit of BHS, the failed department stores group, has declined so far to leave the crease and remains chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Mr Denison certainly isn’t hanging his head in shame and spent Tuesday enjoying the fun at Royal Ascot. Dominic Walsh, The Times.

Timelines

  • Jul.1998: PriceWaterhouseCoopers: Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand.

Articles

  • Oct.07.2018: PwC probed over failed funder of court claims. PwC has been approached by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) following a complaint about its audit of Juridica Investments, which is listed on AIM and was set up to fund lawsuits in the US and distribute damages won to shareholders. It is understood that the inquiry is looking into the audit of Juridica’s accounts from 2014, and the treatment of a loan repayment as a profit. The dominance of the Big Four is under scrutiny after a string of scandals dating back to the financial crisis. PwC has been heavily criticised for it role in the collapse of department store chain BHS. Jersey and Guernsey have separate financial watchdogs from Britain, but were home to 91 AIM-listed companies in 2015, according to the Channel Islands Brussels Office, a lobby group. Juridica raised £35m when it listed 11 years ago and attracted investors including Invesco Perpetual and Baillie Gifford with the promise of funding lucrative litigation cases in America. However, its shares, which peaked at more than £1.50, have plunged after returns failed to meet expectations. Juridica is chaired by Lord Daniel Brennan QC, a Labour peer. It was set up by Richard Fields, an American lawyer who, in 2015, was ordered by a London court to pay £3.3m in a divorce settlement to Ekaterina Parfenova, a Russian beauty queen who was his fifth wife. Peter Evans, The Times.
  • Jul.31.2018: UK firm PwC criticised over bid for major Saudi Arabia contract. One of Britain’s biggest consulting and accountancy firms has been negotiating to land a major contract to help streamline and modernise Saudi Arabia’s military; Saudi is accused of war crimes in Yemen. If it wins the contract, PwC is likely to be tasked with transforming several support areas within the defence ministry. The first phase of the work is likely to focus on how to reshape recruitment, resourcing, performance management and strategic workforce planning, and how to manage and communicate change. Nick Hopkins, The Guardian.
  • Mar.22.2018: PwC defends £20m fee for eight weeks’ Carillion work. PwC has been making £500,000 a day from the liquidation of Carillion and will receive the money in priority to other creditors, who are thought unlikely to recover more than a token sum from the collapsed construction group. Partners in the Big Four accountancy firm told MPs yesterday that they charged £20.4m in the first 8 weeks of the liquidation. Although the fees had come down, Rachel Reeves, chairwoman of the Business select committee, calculated that PwC was charging out its time at £12,500 per person per week, an estimate not denied by the firm. It had previously received £21m from advising the company, the pension fund and the govt before the collapse, leading to MPs to accuse it of “milking the Carillion cow dry”. MPs expressed scepticism over the size of the fees and the conflicts of interest that PwC had to manage when advising different sides. MPs also expressed concern that another adviser, EY, had received £2.5m in fees from Carillion two days before its collapse, taking priority over smaller creditors which had been owed money for longer. Patrick Hosking, The Times.
  • Mar.08.2018: Lloyds TSB "bent own auditor rules". Lloyds TSB agreed to “remove” £800,000 of fees due to be paid to PwC from its 2008 accounts in order to avoid breaching internal rules governing auditor independence, according to documents revealed in a High Court battle. In Sept.2008, Mark Shires, a restructuring partner at PwC... James Hurley, The Times.
  • Feb.13.2018: Carillion: accountants accused of 'feasting' on company. MPs have accused the “big four” accountancy firms of “feasting on what was soon to become a carcass” as it emerged they banked £72m for work linked to collapsed govt contractor Carillion in the years leading up to its financial failure. KPMG, Deloitte, EY, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Frank Field, chair of the work and pensions committee, highlighted the benefits enjoyed by the accounting profession from work performed for Carillion. He said the fact that PwC was the only major firm that did not have a conflict of interest preventing it from administering Carillion’s liquidation showed the industry was an “oligopoly”. Three of Carillion’s former finance directors had also worked for big four accountancy firms, two of them at KPMG. KPMG chairman and senior partner Bill Michael. Rob Davies, The Guardian.

References

  1. ^ Watchdog set to publish audit grades. This year PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, EY, Grant Thornton, BDO and Mazars failed to meet the Financial Reporting Council’s quality target for FTSE 350 companies. The FRC requires that 90% of inspected audits should be classified as good or requiring no more than limited improvements. Louisa Clarence-Smith, The Times, Nov.06.2019.
  2. ^ Corporate Political Engagement Index 2018. The new index of 104 multi-national companies, many of whom regularly meet with govt, has found nearly 75% are failing to adequately disclose how they engage with politicians. Only one company received the highest grade, with the average grade being "E" – representing poor standards in transparency. Transparency International UK, Nov.2018.