Firm fined as principal was director of audit client

NORTH LONDON FIRM SPW has been fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,880 for auditing a firm in which one of its principals was a director.

The firm entered into a consent order with the ICAEW’s investigation committee after it was found that three audit reports, for 2003, 2004 and 2005 year-ends of SPW client ‘A Limited’ were made while a principal of the firm served at the client as a director.

The six-partner firm, based on Regents Park Road, was in the public eye in 2010 as its partners served as joint administrators of collapsed foreign currency handler Crown Currency Exchange. A joint liquidator from SPW now serves alongside partners from Duff & Phelps at Crown Currency.

Also in the latest round of disciplinary procedures announced by the institute, Warwick-based Michael Harwood & Co agreed to a consent order in which it was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £4,367. The order was made for issuing an unqualified audit report on a business of which risks were identified that cast significant doubt on the client’s ability to continue as a going concern.

Swansea firm Bevan & Buckland was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay costs of £4,155 for failing to modify its audit reports over a five-year period for client ‘X’, to reflect that the financial statements failed to give a true and fair view of ‘X’. It also failed to qualify the audit reports of ‘X’ between 2002 and 2005.