KPMG settles lawsuit with $84m payout after failing to spot fraud at Chinese group July 19, 2021 KPMG has agreed to pay around $84m to settle legal claims after failing to identify fraud at a Chinese timber company. China Forestry’s IPO led to backlash against poor listing standards in Hong Kong. Its liquidators claimed the accounting giant was negligent in failing to detect serious false accounting by some of the company’s top [...]
Diversity drive? EY offers senior female staff golf lessons in bid to catch up with peers July 19, 2021 Diversity in senior positions is a problem all City leaders face, but one firm has taken the term “diversity drive” to new lengths. Female consultants at a London division of EY have reportedly been offered golf lessons so they don’t miss out on networking around the tee. Staff at leading professional service firms have identified [...]
PwC to ramp up partner pay packages to record highs after Covid profit rush July 17, 2021 The UK’s largest accountancy firm has done so well out of the pandemic that average partner pay at the firm has surged to a record £868,000. Demand for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) consulting services has weathered Covid extremely well, and the firm is set to publish record-high revenues later in the year, according to reports in Sky [...]
UK Supreme Court reverses radical reinterpretation of contract law July 16, 2021 Termination of a contract does not exempt a contractor from liquidated damage payments, the UK Supreme Court ruled today. The verdict, which overturned what judges branded a ‘radical re-interpretation of case law’ by the Court of Appeal, concludes a long-running legal dispute between US-based contractor Triple Point Technology and PTT Public Company, over the former’s [...]
Upsurge in FCA voluntary resignations costs watchdog over £7m July 16, 2021 The cost of the Financial Conduct Authority’s “voluntary resignation programme” has surged to over £7m compared to just £200,000 last year. The watchdog’s figures, published in its annual report for the year to April, showed the jump, in the number of staff who took advantage of its “Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme” (MARS) in the year [...]
Burford Capital cashes in with £75m for role in high-profile Russian divorce battle July 16, 2021 Partners at Burford Capital, the City firm that backed the ex-wife of a Russian billionaire in her High Court divorce battle, have been paid £74.6m for their role in the high profile case. The financier, which funds claimants in legal disputes with the aim of taking a cut of any settlement, told the London Stock [...]
Exclusive: ‘The recovery is going to be rocky and uneven’, warns fraud fighter Martin Sweeney July 14, 2021 Londoner Martin Sweeney started off at taxi app Hailo as a founding engineer. While there, he worked on a project to predict which orders were likely to be fraudulent. Finding nothing suitable on the market to solve this problem, or at least with the speed or accuracy he and his team wanted, Sweeney and some colleagues decided to [...]
Financial industry to invest in new tech as UK economy rebounds July 14, 2021 Over two thirds of banking and financial services companies plan to invest in new technology and diversify the types of tech they use, according to new research. A survey of 250 senior decision makers found that almost three quarters will invest in improving the quality of their core technology over the next year, as the [...]
Aviva warns government on building safety hit to UK property market July 14, 2021 Aviva warns the government that institutional investors could be scared away from the UK residential property market because of its new safety proposals for high-rise buildings, prompted by Grenfell. The UK insurer asked the government to consider how its new “Building Safety Bill” would financially affect their owners last year in a letter in November [...]
Macfarlanes to pay new solicitors £100,000 as salary war grips the City July 14, 2021 Macfarlanes to pay new solicitors £100,000 as salary war grips the City