At the end of an 11-hour marathon grilling of KPMG executives on Friday, parliamentary committee chair Senator Deborah O’Neill delivered a mic-drop moment: documents from the whistleblower at the centre of the firm’s audit leaks scandal would be published for everyone to peruse over the weekend.
As Capital Brief reported later that night, the documents made for harrowing reading, with the whistleblower accusing the firm of multiple acts of retaliation.
“If I had known the full range of tools available to KPMG, that it was prepared to use: at least five external law firms across four jurisdictions, the circulation of my identity and the substance of my protected disclosure within and beyond the firm, the retaliation, the end of my employment, and the coordination with member firms across the global network, I would not do it again,” they said.
It was a fitting end to a brutal week for KPMG. It also came at a critical moment in the saga.
