The auditor of Patisserie Valerie’s owner has been accused of having “fingerprints all over the crime scene” after it failed to identify a £40m fraud.
Grant Thornton audited Patisserie Holdings for 12 years but did not spot an alleged significant manipulation of its accounts that resulted in the café chain going bust this month.
Peter Kyle, a member of the parliamentary business committee, told the boss of Grant Thornton at a hearing yesterday it was “extraordinary” that the accountancy firm did not notice that Patisserie bank accounts were artificially inflated by bounced cheques worth millions of pounds, which may have allowed it to hide its true position.
However, the former auditor of the collapsed cake chain argued that it is not the role of accountants to uncover fraud.
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