COOPERS AND LYBRAND AND THE REGULATION OF AUDIT

Early day motion 306, tabled 10 February 1999 by Austin Mitchell (Labour). Signed by 25 members.

That this House condemns the accountancy profession for taking seven years to report on the Maxwell audit failures, for failing to hold any public hearings over these audit failures, for levying a fine of only ú1.2 million on Coopers and Lybrand (now part of Price Waterhouse Coopers) - which works out at ú2,000 per partner, though the firm collected more than ú25 million in fees, enjoys a UK income of ú1.8 billion and a worldwide income of ú8 billion - for using the fines to line its own coffers rather than to compensate the victims of Maxwell frauds, for failing to disqualify any of the partners connected with the Maxwell audits and for failing to investigate the overall standards of the auditing firm or the manner in which auditors compromised their independence by becoming advisers and consultants to the Maxwell empire at the same time as they were auditing the firm, leading to too close a relationship; and urges the Government to end self-regulation in auditing and replace the present five regulators and numerous unaccountable quangos with a single statutory based independent regulator to take responsibility for licensing, monitoring, investigation and disciplining auditing firms and particularly the biggest and most powerful ones.

Signatures by party: Labour 18, Liberal Democrat 5, Conservative 1, Labour/Co-operative 1.