Investors raise questions over PwC Satyam audit
Rhys Blakely in Mumbai
Furious Indian investors are demanding to know how PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s largest accountancy firms, missed a systematic £1 billion fraud at Satyam, the IT outsourcing giant, for as long as seven years.
In contrast, Merrill Lynch, the US bank, became aware of the deception in just ten days.
PwC’s role in “India’s Enron” comes under the spotlight amid allegations that large Indian companies regularly use misleading accounting techniques and bully analysts, accountants and auditors into staying quiet.
B. Ramalinga Raju, the former chairman of Satyam, shocked corporate India on Wednesday when he confessed to inflating the company’s profitability, which led to more than £1 billion in fictitious cash and other assets on its books.