Ross Howard has joined fellow Deloitte partner Helen George as having received a “severe” slap on the wrist from the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council for his role in the shoddy auditing of Serco Geografix Ltd., a subsidiary of outsourcing firm Serco Group PLC.
Reuters reported:
Britain’s accounting regulator said on Tuesday it had fined Deloitte’s audit engagement partner Ross Howard for misconduct in the audit of Serco Geografix’s 2012 financial statements.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said Howard had been severely reprimanded and will have to pay a discounted settlement of £78,000, ending the regulator’s investigation into Deloitte’s audit of Serco Georgrafix.
Back in July, the FRC fined Deloitte £6.5 million, reduced to £4.225 million, for its extremely subpar audits of Serco Geografix’s 2011 and 2012 financial statements.
The FRC said Deloitte and audit engagement partner Helen George “failed to act in accordance with the fundamental principle of professional competence and due care.” George’s fine of £150,000, which was reduced to £97,500, only pertained to the 2011 audit of Serco Geografix.
In addition, Deloitte agreed to pay £300,000 toward the costs of the investigation and have all audit staff undergo training aimed at improving the conduct of the team.
The fines doled out by the FRC in July came just a couple days after Serco Geografix agreed to pay £19.2 million to settle fraud and false accounting charges brought by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office.
Serco Geografix misled the U.K.’s Ministry of Justice about profits made from a contract between 2010 and 2013, according to the SFO.
