Partners from Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte, now merged into PricewaterhouseCoopers, are bracing themselves for the results of a Department of Trade & Industry investigation on the Maxwell affair, due to be published in the next few weeks.
The report on Robert Maxwell’s publishing company, Mirror Group Newspapers, is believed to heavily criticise a number of organisations involved in its flotation in 1991.
It is expected that the report, which has taken investigators four years to pull together, will reveal that the DTI believed the flotation prospectus was materially inaccurate and misleading.
Coopers was the auditor of the group at the time of the flotation. Partners from Coopers, and the firm itself, have already been heavily censured by an Accountants’ Joint Disciplinary Tribunal over the affair.
The report, compiled by DTI inspectors Justice John Thomas and accountant Raymond Turner, is in its final stages of approval, with copies having been sent to those named in the investigation.
It will stretch to over 1,000 pages, and is likely to embarrass a number of City and political figures.
PwC declined to comment.
Links
More details about the JDS findings against Coopers & Lybrand can be found at www.castigator.org.uk
JDS rakes in £5m in disciplinary fines
Big Five – Maxwell payout threatens premiums