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Auditing watchdog gets serious
The national auditing watchdog is considering imposing higher fines based on a percentage of annual turnover, with a similar approach based on total remuneration for punishing individual partners, rather than using past rulings as a benchmark. The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board yesterday unveiled draft guidelines for imposing “credible” fines which are “proportionate to the context in which the accountancy profession operates today, and will act as a credible deterrent to future misconduct.” The AADB in January fined PwC £1.4m – a fraction of the company’s $29bn annual revenue – for wrongly telling local regulators for seven years that JPMorgan Securities was keeping client money safe.