Deloitte, its partners and the former FD of engineering group Semple Cochrane
have been cleared of disciplinary charges laid against them.
The Joint Disciplinary Tribunal (JDT) hearing the complaints has announced
that it has dismissed the complaints.
The complaints had been laid against Deloitte & Touche, David John
Crawford John (Ian) Durie, Marshall William Miller, and William Wilson Evans.
Semple Cochrane was a Scottish public limited company, which had worked on
the refit of the landing ship Sir Bedivere (which had taken part in the
Falklands Campaign).
Accounting issues arose at the group over the 1999 accounts among others.
While the issued numbers had showed an operating profit of £2.9m, a new board of
directors, with new auditors, subsequently revised the accounts, transforming
the profit of £2.9 million into a loss of £2.6 million.
But all complaints laid against the accountants involved, except for one
admitted breach of a rule requiring the keeping of adequate auditing records,
were dismissed by the JDT on the grounds that they were unproven.
The admitted breach, which related to audit work done by Rutherford Manson
Dowds, a Deloitte predecessor firm, did not warrant any action, the Tribunal
decided.
Vince Niblett, head of audit at Deloitte, said: ‘Today’s JDS report provides
long overdue confirmation that there were no grounds to the complaints against
Deloitte. Deloitte has maintained from day one that this disciplinary action was
unmerited and we are pleased to have been fully exonerated.
‘However, it is regrettable that it has taken almost eight years to conclude
this enquiry since the matter was referred to the JDS in November 2000. The
careers of a number of innocent individuals have been unfairly prejudiced by
this enquiry hanging over them for so long.
‘We take our audit responsibilities extremely seriously and the tribunal’s
finding is testament to our robust approach.’
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