Britain's accounting regulator said on Thursday it has fined Deloitte a record 15 million pounds for its audit of software firm Autonomy that contained"serious and serial failures".
Deloitte, one of the world’s Big Four auditors, and two of its now former partners, Richard Knights and Nigel Mercer, were investigated in relation to their audit of Autonomy’s financial statements for 2009 and 2010.Autonomy, founded by Mike Lynch, was bought for US$11 billion by Hewlett Packard in 2011, but the deal turned sour a year later when HP wrote off three-quarters of the former FTSE 100 company’s value, alleging it had been deceived by its finances.
Deloitte said it regretted that the FRC tribunal had ruled that aspects of its audit work on Autonomy between 2009 and 2011 fell below the professional standards required.