PwC Might Have to Pay for Those JP Morgan "Oversights"…
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Play with rats, get the Black Plague. That’s all I’m saying. It’s about damn time someone ask the question "What the f*#k were the auditors THINKING?!"
PricewaterhouseCoopers is facing an inquiry by accounting regulators into its failure to notice that JP Morgan was paying up to £16 billion of clients’ money into the wrong bank accounts.
Last week the Financial Services Authority fined the investment bank £33.3 million — the largest penalty that the City regulator has imposed — for breaches of client money rules under which customers’ funds became mixed with the bank’s own cash over a seven-year period.
PwC, JP Morgan’s auditor, is now likely to be drawn into another inquiry by the two professional bodies that oversee accountants, the Financial Reporting Council and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
In addition to serving as principal auditor, PwC was retained by JP Morgan to produce an annual client asset returns report — a yearly certification to prove that customers’ funds were being effectively ring-fenced and therefore protected in the event of the bank’s collapse. But PwC signed off the client report even though JP Morgan was in breach of the rules.
If you recall, JP Morgan likes to play with client money. Illegally.
Remind me why we even have auditors again?
