Sorry seems to be the easiest word

Sorry seems to be the easiest word

You have to feel sorry for the staff and partners at PricewaterhouseCoopers.Actually, 'sorry' is a word they've had to use quite a lot recently.

First, they apologised, on behalf of Coopers & Lybrand, for making a mess of things at the Mirror Group, back in the early 1990s.

Then, last week, they apologised for making a mess of things during the Resort Hotels affair, again in the early 1990s.

In fact, the two cases are remarkably similar: both involved deliberate attempts to defraud; in both cases the auditor was deliberately misled; and in both cases it was by someone called Robert.

So perhaps it was no surprise to see that the firm’s responses to both incidents were remarkably similar as well.

After the DTI’s Mirror report was published, PwC accepted the criticism, saying that C&L had clearly fallen short of its own ‘high standards’.

After an accountants’ Joint Disciplinary Tribunal had castigated it over Resort, the firm accepted the criticism, saying that C&L had fallen short of its own ‘high standards’.

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