Accountants and Lawyers Slated for Cleaning Up In Financial Mess
It’s not just bankers having their profits scrutinised in the downturn…
Other professionals are also in the firing line. This time it’s lawyers and accountants – The Sunday Times reports:
A joint investigation by The Sunday Times and More4 News has found that a “magic circle” of 10 accountancy and law firms, including PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte and Ernst & Young, have made a total of almost £20 billion in fees in the past two years. An estimated £3 billion of this has involved insolvency work, which has covered almost all the recent big company collapses.
The fee bonanza has been described as “ripping off creditors and taxpayers” and even as an extortion racket by one Labour MP, Austin Mitchell.
KPMG were the only one of the Big4 not to be singled out for some abuse in the report.
