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Silicon Valley Bank failed just 14 days after KPMG LLP gave the lender a clean bill of health. Signature Bank went down 11 days after the accounting firm signed off on its audit. What KPMG knew about the two banks’ financial situation and what it missed will likely be the subject of regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits. KPMG signed the audit report for Silicon Valley Bank’s parent, SVB Financial Group SIVB Regulators seized the bank on March 10 after a surge of withdrawals threatened to leave it short of cash. “Common sense tells you that an auditor issuing a clean report,...

A no-deal Brexit could trigger a recession lasting four quarters in Britain, with the country's gross domestic product (GDP) contracting by 1.5 percent in 2020, the accountancy firm KPMG warned on Monday. KPMG economists said that trade disruption under a no-deal Brexit would damage the British businesses, while potential shortages of imported foods and medicines are likely to undermine consumer confidence. A no-deal Brexit could also significantly dent exports in 2020, causing delays at the border and confusion about regulations. "While both the Bank of England and the UK government would be likely to offer monetary and fiscal policy support,...

The downturn in crude oil prices in recent months will not last forever, and what the market is experiencing now is not the old boom and bust period, an energy industry analyst told Rigzone. “I’m still incredibly bullish on the industry, and I do think it’s far more stable and resilient than it was in decades past,” KPMG’s Regina Mayor, an advisor for the consulting practice, said. “That’s not to say that it won’t experience a contraction or two, but it’s not the boom and bust cycle we’ve seen.” Already, there are signs that the future remains bright for the...

KPMG and PwC eye rating move By Richard Milne and Rachel Sanderson in London Published: May 17 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 17 2010 03:00 KPMG and PwC, two of the world's largest accounting firms, have considered entering the credit rating business, in a move that would pitch them against the current top three - and heavily criticised - agencies Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch. John Griffith Jones, chairman of KPMG in the UK and co-chair in Europe, told the Financial Times it had discussed the move as - being one of the four biggest accounting firms in...

Report States KPMG Allowed Fraud At New Century (RTTNews) - A report released Thursday suggested that auditor KPMG LLP either initiated accounting fraud at New Century Financial (NEWCQ.PK) or stood by as the mortgage lender committed fraud in 2005 and 2006. The independent report penned by court examiner Michael Missal had been requested by the U.S. Department of Justice. The massive report concluded that the mortgage lender "engaged in a number of significant improper and imprudent practices related to its loan originations, operations, and financial reporting." The study focused in on how New Century accounted for losses on troubled loans...

Auditor KPMG this week sued its former client Fannie Mae, alleging that the giant mortgage funding company deceived it for years, damaging KPMG's reputation and exposing it to the threat of substantial liability. Both firms have been sued by investors since Fannie Mae was revealed to have overstated profits by billions of dollars. For years, KPMG put its stamp of approval on financial statements that Fannie Mae now acknowledges were flawed. In court papers filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, KPMG also disclosed that it has become the subject of regulatory inquiries. The accounting firm says...

SAN DIEGO – San Diego's laborious and long-delayed 2003 annual financial audit is finished after three tortuous years in which the city's credit rating and reputation tumbled to unprecedented lows following a wide range of accounting errors. Mayor Jerry Sanders is set to announce at an afternoon news conference Friday that auditors from the giant accounting firm KPMG have finally stopped being suspicious of the city's accounting. The Mayor's Office said it received a two-page letter from the firm Friday. The letter, dated Monday, says that KPMG has concluded its audit and found that San Diego's financial statements “present fairly,...

Global management consultancy firm KPMG has set up a separate unit in India that will help manage risks of global corporations. The new centre for excellence -- KPMG Resource Centre Private Ltd (KRCPL) -- will deploy skilled professionnals from India to service KPMG's global clients. "Going forward, this centre will provide KPMG with global advisors from India -- not only in the field of information risk maagement but also for other risk and business advisory functions," KPMG executive director and KRCPL CEO, Pradeep Udhas said in a statement. KPMG India has already deployed 150 professionals in KRCPL, where it has...

Consultants trying to unravel the issues surrounding San Diego's tangled finances told city officials yesterday that their work will take until at least mid-March to complete, three months later than their recent estimate. The development adds to the uncertainty the city faces over its fiscal condition and is likely to further delay the release of long-overdue financial statements that are needed for San Diego to re-enter the municipal bond market. KPMG, the accounting firm conducting the 2003 audit, has predicted that it will take at least a month to issue the statements after Kroll Inc., the firm handling the investigation,...

The trial of nine defendants in the KPMG tax shelter case is due to get under way soon in New York. All nine-- eight former KPMG partners and one outside lawyer-- have pleaded not guilty, despite an admission of wrongdoing by the company and a pledge by KPMG to cooperate with the government.... KPMG's cooperation with the feds was part of the price it paid to avoid a threatened indictment of the firm as a whole. As Arthur Andersen learned the hard way, that would have been a death sentence. KPMG has also agreed to cut its former partners off...

KPMG avoided the fate of Arthur Andersen yesterday... over the marketing and sale of "abusive" tax shelters. But the price of survival was high. The accounting firm will pay $456 million in fines and restitution and has agreed to let a federal monitor look over its shoulder. At the same time, no fewer than eight former KPMG executives and an outside lawyer were indicted on conspiracy charges for designing and selling the shelters.... KPMG will survive this "deferred prosecution" by admitting wrongdoing. But it's easy to forget amid the righteous indignation over tax shelters with names like FLIP, BLIP, OPIS...

A 9-0 Supreme Court rebuke ought to be a teaching moment. So it is amazing to behold that -- notwithstanding the unanimous recent reversal of its 2002 Arthur Andersen conviction -- the Justice Department may well make the same mistake all over again. We're referring to the news that Justice may indict the entire KPMG accounting firm for obstruction of justice and the marketing of legally questionable tax shelters. As Andersen's fate made clear, an indictment against a corporation is usually a death sentence, whatever the ultimate legal outcome.... The purpose of criminal law, we had thought, is to punish...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An international audit released on Thursday showed no evidence of fraud in the spending of Iraq's oil money by the U.S.-led authority that ran the country after last year's invasion. But the interim audit said controls by the Coalition Provisional Authority over Iraq's oil revenues were not sufficient to ensure that all spending was made for the purposes intended. The audit was requested by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB), which includes the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, was part of its U.N.-mandated task of watching over Iraq's oil revenues. The...

Government tries to ban Blair aide's revelationsBy Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite (Filed: 27/06/2004) The government is attempting to censor a new book by one of Tony Blair's former key advisers that will reveal embarrassing new details of the fiery relationship between the Prime Minister and Gordon Brown. Sir Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary, is pressing Derek Scott, who was Mr Blair's chief economics adviser from 1997 until last December, to remove large sections of his account of his time at No 10 on the grounds that they breach the Official Secrets Act. The book, Off Whitehall, will be published...

United Nations-mandated auditors have sharply criticised the US occupation authority for the way it has spent more than $11bn in Iraqi oil revenues and say they have faced "resistance" from coalition officials. In an interim report, obtained by the Financial Times, KPMG says the Development Fund for Iraq, which is managed by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and channels oil revenue into reconstruction projects, is "open to fraudulent acts". The auditors criticise the CPA's bookkeeping and warn: "The CPA does not have effective controls over the ministries' spending of their individually allocated budgets, whether the funds are direct from the...

Ahmad Chalabi is in possession of "miles" of documents with the potential to expose politicians, corporations and the United Nations as having connived in a system of kickbacks and false pricing worth billions of pounds. That may have been enough to provoke yesterday's American raid. So explosive are the contents of the files that their publication would cause serious problems for US allies and friendly states around the globe. Late last year and several months before Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority became involved, Mr Chalabi had amassed enough information concerning corruption in the oil-for-food scandal to realise that he was...

Bremer office 'hampering oil-for-food corruption inquiry' By Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer (Filed: 17/05/2004) An investigation into the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the United Nations is being hampered by the US-led administration in Iraq, according to congressmen and officials in Baghdad. Serious reservations have been raised over the appointment of auditors Ernst & Young to investigate the disappearance of billions of pounds under the UN oil-for-food programme. Much of the money is alleged to have been handed to Saddam Hussein's friends in the West. Some 270 people and organisations were named in documents submitted to Congress including...

Probe to blow lid off massive U.N. scandal Documents prove oil-for-food corruption involving world leaders Editor's note: WorldNetDaily is pleased to have a content-sharing agreement with Insight magazine, the bold Washington publication not afraid to ruffle establishment feathers. Subscribe to Insight at WorldNetDaily's online store and save 71 percent off the cover price. By Kenneth R. Timmerman © 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc. A team of international forensic investigators is preparing to blow the lid off the much-disputed U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and will present new evidence of corruption at an upcoming congressional hearing that directly will implicate world...

AN INVESTIGATION into the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq is to name more than 200 people, including British and European politicians, businessmen and senior UN officials who may have profited from Saddam Hussein’s regime. The probe is being conducted by the accountants KPMG and the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer on behalf of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). The KPMG team previously traced assets seized by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Investigators fear that tens of billions of dollars may have been distributed improperly under the auspices of the aid programme. The publication of the report, probably in May,...

ATLANTA (AP) - Energy supplier Mirant Corp., in a long-awaited audit, said Wednesday it overstated earnings by $188 million over a two-year period, and cited hefty restructuring charges as it reported a $2.4 billion loss for 2002. Atlanta-based Mirant had delayed the release of its 2002 earnings until completing the audit, which showed it overstated income by $159 million in 2001 and $29 million in 2000. Mirant announced in November that it overstated net income by $41 million from 1999 to 2002. Accounting firm KPMG performed an independent audit of those years, and Mirant filed the findings with the Securities...