KPMG and one of its partners has been fined £1.5 million over an audit of M&C Saatchi which overstated the profit of the advertising group.
The UK regulator Financial Reporting Council started an investigation when M&C Saatchi discovered accounting errors which led to a restatement of profit in the 2019 accounts.
M&C Saatchi in August 2019 reported a £6.4 million charge against its results because of the accounting errors.
“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 Claudia Mortimore of the Financial Reporting Council.
“This included a lack of professional scepticism in certain high-risk areas of the audit and basic failings in journal testing.”
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