Fines for Deloitte & Grant Thornton & more…Keep up with the latest accountancy and finance news in our weekly round-up…

UK’s big accountancy firms told to split off audit firms by 2024

The UK’s “big four” accountancy firms have been told to fence off their auditing operations as part of a drive to improve oversight of corporate finances in the wake of high-profile collapses such as Carillion and BHS.

Deloitte faces record £15m fine for ‘serious’ failures in Autonomy audits

Deloitte is facing a record £15m fine for “serious and serial failures” in its audits of Autonomy, a former FTSE100 technology group that was at the centre of one of the biggest accounting scandals in UK corporate history.

Grant Thornton fined £3m for ‘numerous’ audit failures

Grant Thornton has been fined £3m for “firm-wide failures” to comply with ethical standards between 2014 and 2017, as regulatory scrutiny increases on the Big Four.

Head of audit review calls for urgent reform after Wirecard scandal

The head of the review into the auditing industry has called on the government to press on with an overhaul of the sector, after a Big Four firm failed to uncover fraud at Wirecard. 

Lookers uncovers £19m shortfall in fraud investigation

Overstated bonuses and “fraudulent expense claims” were discovered, and a draft report from Grant Thornton identified areas requiring “behavioural and cultural” change in the business, the dealer group said. 

KPMG called in a shopping centre giant faces financial collapse

Partners with the KPMG’s restructuring practice have been appointed joint administrators to Intu Properties, the owner of some of the UK’s largest shopping centres, which has collapsed under the impact of its debt burden and the impact of coronavirus on shopping habits.