Former PwC partner banned for 15 years

LONDON: A former PwC partner has been banned from audit work for fifteen years and fined £500,000 by a watchdog after admitting misconduct in the accounting firm’s audit of BHS. Steve Denison left PwC earlier this month after 33 years at the firm. PwC was fined £10m by industry regulator the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and ordered to review all policies for handling high-risk companies. The fine is the biggest ever imposed by the FRC. The fines will be reduced by 35 per cent to £6.5m and £325,000 respectively if the parties agree to settle early. The sanctions follow a two-year probe into PwC’s 2014 audits of BHS and Taveta Group, which owns a number of Sir Philip Green’s investments. — Reuters