Mike Ashley throws accusations at administrator as he abandons bid for cake shop Patisserie Valerie February 11, 2019 Retail tycoon Mike Ashley has pulled his bid for scandal-hit Patisserie Valerie, lashing out with claims the cafe chain’s administrators withheld vital information. Ashley’s Sports Direct said today it was “reluctantly” withdrawing its bid to lift the struggling firm out of administration, just two days after the offer was tabled. Read more: Sports Direct makes [...]
Grant Thornton and the fraudian slip February 8, 2019 David Dunckley could have asked for a better start to his term as boss of Grant Thornton. Since taking over from predecessor Sacha Romanovitch – who quit shortly after being publicly criticised by an insider who claimed to represent 15 partners or directors – Dunckley has already had to deal with revelations of “false entries” [...]
City Moves for 8 February – who’s switching jobs at Morrison & Foerster, Jefferies and DMH Stallard? February 8, 2019 Morrison & Foerster Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce that Christopher Kandel will be joining the firm’s London office in the coming days as a partner in its Finance practice. Christopher brings to the firm a wealth of experience in leveraged finance and complex international acquisition finance, and restructuring [...]
Renault will alert prosecutors over costs for Carlos Ghosn’s Versailles wedding February 7, 2019 French car firm Renault will alert prosecutors over a sponsorship deal with the Palace of Versailles which included a €50,000 (£43,720) benefit to its ousted boss Carlos Ghosn. Renault’s internal probe, launched after Japanese authorities arrested Ghosn in November, has “identified that Mr Ghosn was accorded a personal benefit valued at €50,000 under the terms [...]
Big Four accountants push back against breakup proposals February 7, 2019 The Big Four accountancy firms have fired back at the competition regulator’s proposal to break-up their UK operations. In their responses to the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) outlines for shaking up the audit market, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC all resisted a suggested split. David Barnes, managing director for public policy at Deloitte UK, [...]
Former Petrofac sales executive pleads guilty to bribery over oil contracts February 7, 2019 A former Petrofac executive charged with using illicit payments to secure oil contracts in the Middle East has pleaded guilty to 11 charges of bribery, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said this morning. David Lufkin, 51, formerly the UK-headquartered oil and gas firm’s global head of sales, made the plea at Westminster Magistrates’ Court as [...]
City Moves for 7 February – who’s switching jobs at Onfido, Brewdog and Mastercard? February 6, 2019 Who’s on the move today? Onfido Global identity-verification provider Onfido announced it has hired Mohan Mahadevan as its vice-president of research. The former head of computer vision and machine learning for robotic applications at Amazon will lend his expertise to Onfido’s 250-strong team of technologists across San Francisco, New York, London, Lisbon, Delhi and Singapore [...]
Audit watchdog ‘whitewashed’ my HBOS evidence, says whistleblower February 6, 2019 The UK audit watchdog has been accused of brushing-off a whistleblower who claimed HBOS had understated loan-loss provisions in its 2007 accounts. An MP described the handling of the case as “astounding”. Rob Kennedy, a former employee in the lender’s corporate division, was part of the team that worked directly to calculate the provision and [...]
City Moves for 6 February – who’s switching jobs at Browne Jacobson, EY and Freshfields? February 5, 2019 Who’s on the move today? Browne Jacobson Browne Jacobson announced that Caroline Green has been elected the firm’s new senior partner with effect from 1 May 2019 for a three-year term. Caroline, who is one of the firm’s longest serving partners and jointly heads up the firm’s retail sector group, will be its first female [...]
Watchdog boss: Auditors ‘clearly responsible’ for detecting company fraud February 5, 2019 The head of the UK’s beleaguered accountancy watchdog said auditors are “clearly responsible” for finding fraud in companies. Stephen Haddrill, chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), said accountants too often buy into a “mythology” that they will not find wrongdoing while checking companies’ accounts. “The auditor is clearly responsible for finding fraud in [...]
