This would be a highly inappropriate article to use PwC Chad on.
Perhaps our own regulators could learn a thing or two from China about handing down punishments to audit firms. If you want it to hurt, hit ’em where it counts: their pockets.
For months now, PwC China has been dealing with the fallout of former client and currently bankrupt property developer Evergrande inflating revenues and then defaulting on its debts. Early this year a damning letter titled “Who brought PwC into the fire pit of Evergrande?” purportedly signed by anonymous partners began circulating around Chinese social media. The salacious note accused PwC of turning a blind eye to Evergrande fraud for a decade. PwC Hong Kong soon after put out a statement to say “the letter contains inaccurate statements and false allegations concerning PwC and certain of our partners.”
“The inaccurate statements and false allegations could tarnish PwC’s reputation and infringe our legal rights,” added that statement.
Yeah, it’s a little worse than a hit to reputation. Though the Hong Kong audit regulator did say in July it found no evidence to support the letter’s claims.
As a direct result of the Evergrande situation, PwC began to bleed clients. And because they were losing clients, they needed to lose some staff. With a headcount of 781 partners and almost 19,000 employees in mainland China, the firm was looking at laying off half of its financial services audit staff and as much as 20% of staff elsewhere in the firm including non-audit service lines.
And now FT is reporting that PwC China has begun warning clients that the firm expects to catch a six-month ban as part of its suite of punishments for what happened with Evergrande. This is double the three-month ban Deloitte Beijing caught for sloppy auditing of China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd in 2023.
The action against PwC comes after China’s securities regulator in March said Evergrande had inflated its mainland revenues by almost $80bn in the two years before the developer defaulted on its debts in 2021, despite PwC’s China unit giving the accounts a clean bill of health.
The business ban, potentially accompanied by a large fine, would be the toughest ever action by Chinese regulators against a Big Four firm. It comes as Beijing steps up scrutiny over the role played by auditors in financial scandals, in this case in the crisis-hit property sector, which once contributed around a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product.
Clients were told PwC will be unable to sign off on financial statements during this ban but the firm “assured clients that staff will keep working during the suspension and will be able to certify the audit opinions on their 2024 annual reports once the ban is lifted in March,” FT wrote. Of course they will keep working.
PwC braced for 6-month ban in China over Evergrande audit [Financial Times]