KPMG fined £1.5m over Saatchi audit

UK accounting firm KPMG has been fined yet again, this time to the tune of £1.5m over what the industry regulator called "serious failings" in its audit of advertising agency M&C Saatchi.

The Financial Reporting Council on Monday slapped the company with the fine, reduced from £2.25m after it owned up, for audit failures relating to M&C Saatchi’s accounts for the year to December 2018.

“KPMG’s audit did not meet the required quality standards in a number of respects amounting to serious audit failings and breaches of audit standards,” said FRC deputy executive counsel Claudia Mortimore.

Adrian Wilcox, a partner at the firm responsible for the 2018 audit, was also fined nearly £50,000 - reduced from £75,000.

M&C Saatchi was rocked by an accounting scandal in 2019, with trading in the company’s shares suspended for 10 weeks the following year, as new auditor PwC tried to unearth its actual financial position.

In October KPMG was hammered with a record £21m fine by the FRC over its auditing work on the failed government contractor, Carillion which collapsed six years ago with debts of £7bn and sparked fears from within Downing Street over the viability of other firms in the sector.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com