PriceWaterHouseCooper is facing the largest fine ever handed down by the United Kingdom’s accounting watchdog over misconduct during the company’s audit of RSM Tenon Group in 2011.
The U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council said Wednesday that it would fine PwC a record 5.1 million pounds ($6.6 million). The council also announced penalties against Nicholas Boden, a senior PwC audit partner.
This comes not long after PwC faced significant fines in May for an audit of Connaught Plc. The FRC issues a 5-million-pound sanction ($6.4 million), which at the time was the largest ever. Today’s fine could have been even more expensive for PwC — the FRC said the fine would have been 6 million pounds if not for a settlement discount. The company must also pay 500,000 pounds toward the FRC’s costs.
“We are sorry that aspects of the audit carried out in 2011 fell short of professional standards,” a PwC spokesman told Bloomberg in an email statement. “We continually review and update our audit processes in response to both internal reviews and external inspection findings.”
With these record fines in the U.K. and the Oscars envelope mishap back in February, PwC has had to navigate some very public missteps in 2017 — though Fortune notes that the company’s reputation has weathered much worse in the last decade.
