Versailles auditor is excluded from ICAEW
ICAEW fellow Thomas Peter Dales today admitted to 21 complaints in relation to his role as reporting accountant in collapsed trade finance company Versailles Group.
Link: Versailles’ auditor to face tribunal
A joint disciplinary tribunal found the complaints against Dales proven, excluded him from ICAEW membership and ordered him to pay costs of £10,000.
Dales’s former firm, Nunn Hayward chartered accountants, is also under investigation from the Joint Disciplinary Scheme, the disciplinary arm of independent watchdog, the Accountancy Foundation.
‘We are well on our way [with the Nunn Hayward investigation]. We are waiting for a response from Nunn Hayward, which has been outstanding for a long time,’ said Chris Dickson, JDS executive counsel.
Nunn Hayward declined to comment, but a source inside the firm said that Dales is no longer working at the firm.
Yesterday the tribunal heard complaints against Dales concerned his role as reporting accountant and partner in Nunn Hayward, ‘in sending letters to comfort Versailles’ directors during years ending in 1998 and 1999, in circumstances which breached fundamental principle 1 of the ICAEW’s guide to professional ethics’.
Complaints further concerned ‘his failure, inter alia, to undertake the professional work involved with due skill, care and diligence, and with proper regard for the technical and professional standards expected of him’.