China slaps PwC with record US$62.2 million fine, 6-month ban for Evergrande audit failures
The penalty, the harshest imposed on any audit firm by China to date, is part of Beijing’s effort to tighten financial regulations and improve market integrity, analysts said.
The PwC unit failed to detect the true financial condition and false accounting of Evergrande from 2018 to 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on its website on Friday.
“PwC Zhong Tian and its Guangzhou unit failed to identify the false accounting treatment of China Evergrande Group’s financial statements from 2018 and 2020, as it did not give an appropriate audit opinion to point out these false accounting treatments,” the statement said.
The Ministry of Finance imposed a fine of 325 million yuan on PwC Zhong Tian for its failures in 2019 and 2020, representing 10 times its income for the job, and imposed a 116 million yuan fine for its work in 2018, which is five times its income.
