Brits Want to Make Wrist Slaps for Big 4 Auditors Slightly More Uncomfortable

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Britain's audit regulator, the Financial Reporting Council's accountancy and actuarial discipline board (AADB), has decided that even though its fine of £1.4 million of PwC in January was a record, it really didn't satisfy as a "credible deterrent." Accordingly, the AADB is floating some ideas on how to make the fines a little less "meh" by asking the tribunals that assess fines to "[give] formal guidance on setting fines […] reducing their dependence on precedents set by previous cases that might be as much as two decades old." Of course, even if the AADB had assessed the penalty it wanted, it would have amounted to just over 1% of PwC's UK revenues of £2.4 billion; a wrist slap that would have left a bit of red mark as opposed to no mark at all. [FT]

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