KPMG raises concerns over Lycamobile's company structure

INTERNATIONAL telephone calls business Lycamobile has been criticised by its auditors KPMG over its company structure, which left it unable to account for £134m of assets.

Lyca’s complex and opaque web of offshore and UK companies raised concerns over where its assets were drawn from.

Lyca’s latest filing with Companies House – posted six months late on 7 May – show that the Big Four firm was unable to obtain “all the information and explanations that we consider necessary for the purposes of the audit”.

It earmarked the £134m owed to Lycamobile by related companies, “for which the audit evidence available to us was limited because of the complex nature of the related party structure the company operates within”.

KPMG has held Lyca’s audit since it won the tender from EY in 2014 and flagged in its notes that it was “unable to determine whether adequate accounting records have been kept”.

The news about Lyca, the Conservatives’ biggest single donor since 2011, comes amid ever-increasing pressure to curtail international tax avoidance and evasion while the prime minister hosts an anti-corruption conference in London.

There is no suggestion Lycamobile has undertaken any illegal activity.

Lycamobile has been contacted for comment.