How the lawyers dodged the KPMG inquiry
Law firms Ashurst and Allens were dragged into KPMG’s mess, but the Senate inquiry could not make them carry the blame.
Try as it might, the parliamentary inquiry into the KPMG audit leaks could not get Ashurst and Allens to say what its members were thinking: that the law firms had been used as cover for KPMG’s failings.
The inquiry wanted to get its hands on the investigations KPMG had cited in support of its “nothing to see here” stance. It finally did on Monday, but only after embarrassing the Big Four accounting and consulting firm into handing them over.
Friday’s hearing was a debacle for KPMG and its chair, Martin Sheppard. In the morning, Sheppard said it was his decision and the firm would not hand over the report because of legal professional privilege.
By 5.30pm, Sheppard had reversed ferret. Watching him do so, and then try to negotiate with inquiry chair Senator Deborah O’Neill over the terms of surrender, was excruciating.
