Last month we wondered aloud if KPMG would get dragged into this Wells Fargo kerfuffle. It took awhile, but it appears that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has some fire leftover from her roasting of former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf for the bank's auditor, KPMG:
Warren, along with fellow Democrats Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, wrote KPMG CEO and Chairman Lynn Doughtie to raise questions about the firm’s failure to identify the millions of dollars in unauthorized bank, credit and debit card account openings that occurred while it audited the bank’s financial statements from between 2011 and 2015.
Warren and et al. are curious as to why "none of KPMG’s audits identified any concerns with illegal behavior" and how WF "maintained … effective internal control over financial reporting" when they received a clean audit opinion. Oh, and they pile this on for good measure:
[Y]our firm’s failure to identify the illegal behavior at Wells Fargo raises questions about the quality of your audits and the effectiveness of the implementation of these Sarbanes-Oxley requirements by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
KPMG has until November 28th to respond to the letter. After that? Who knows! Maybe a hearing. Gosh, that'd be fun.
Image: Wikipedia/Official portrait
