Lack of governance at Woking council enables a billion pound debt mountain
Explainer The accountancy firm Grant Thornton (GT) has published a public interest report into the governance failures at Woking Council which allowed the former CEO Ray Morgan, to run up debts in excess of £1.2bn through reckless lending. The report…
IoD publishes a paper on the Post Office scandal
Review The Institute of Directors (IoD) has published a policy paper on the corporate governance failures at the Post Office which contributed to the Horizon scandal and the false prosecution of over 900 sub-postmasters (SPMs), for theft. The paper details…
Regulators issue fines for greenwashing breaches
Explainer The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States has fined Keurig Dr Pepper, a beverage company, for greenwashing by claiming coffee pods marketed as ‘K-cups’ could be fully recycled when they couldn’t. Wake up and smell the…
Who guards the guards in the financial services industry?
Comment The FCA is watching: The regulator is expecting full disclosure from audit firms or expect financial penalties – Credit: Macedo Media For the lovers of Latin and political philosophy, the phrase ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ or in plain English…
FCA fines PwC £15m for failing to report suspicious activity at LCF
Expensive error: Failure to disclose fraudulent activity by audit clients could prove costly – Credit: Pixabay The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined the big 4 accountant PwC £15m for failing to escalate its concerns to the watchdog over the…
City regulator censures accountants MacIntyre Hudson over client money reporting breaches
FCA fines MacIntyre Hudson for client money breaches
Aircraft accident avoided after risk management failures
A passenger aircraft was forced to return to Stansted airport after floodlights used to film an advert caused thermal damage to several passenger windows which came loose in-flight. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) bulletin for June 2024 states the…
Ten firms account for a third of all complaints received by FOS for H2 2023
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) received a total of 95,349 complaints between 1 July and 31 December 2023, which represented an increase of almost 20% to the same period in 2022, when 79,921 complaints were accepted. For H2, 2023, ten…
Cleaning firm’s viral Tik Tok videos drives sales
Two enterprising business graduates have harnessed the power of social media to advertise and grow their cleaning business, Makagroup Ltd. Brothers John and James Makanjuola, identical twins aged 23, business management graduates from Portsmouth and Bournemouth universities respectively, decided to…
Confessions of a teenager fraudster series explains little apart from bad behaviours
Review – Confessions of Teenage Fraudster – Episode 1, BBC, 5 June 2024 Confessions of a Teenage Fraudster is a three-part docuseries that details the exploits of Elliott Castro, a Glaswegian born in 1982, who became a notorious credit card…