Big 4 accountants Deloitte have been fined £14 million for breaches of professional rules relating to conflicts of interest during their involvement with MG Rover.
My brief question on the issue - brief only because of my morning's schedule - is whether this is enough? Regulators have obviously been satisfied major breaches occurred and one partner has been fined £250,000 (about a third f a year's salary in Deloitte) and barred from practice for three years, but for the rest of the firm this still has a very modest impact on earnings.
If the reputation of the profession is really important, its rules that important, and independence that essential are hat remain modest fines like this enough?
I doubt it.
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minor point, but he wont get a personal tax deduction for the fine so will pay it out of taxed earnings (so its probably more like two thirds of his after tax remuneration in reality). Probably also true that he wont have earned as much as £750k with a pending professional body disciplinary going on as his money would have been hit already.
Maybe
And maybe the firm paid
But the council did also call for a ‘severe reprimand’ of Deloitte … aka ‘Dolittle’.
That should put them in their place … not.
And I read that the tribunal found that Deloitte and Einollahi showed in some instances a “persistent and deliberate disregard of the fundamental principles and statements of the ICAEW’s code of ethics.” That sounds pretty serious to me – a 3 year ban for him and a mere monetary fine on both him and the firm for that? Not really sending out the message that they’ll come down hard on offenders is it!
Just seen on the BBC that EU lawyers say that a financial transactions tax would be illegal.
The EU has approved it