Bloomberg is reporting that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the Chinese arms of Deloitte Touche, Ernst & Young , KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers concerning their audits of certain Chinese companies with publicly traded securities in United States markets.
On December 3, 2012, the SEC initiated public administrative proceedings against BDO China Dahua CPA Co., Ltd.; Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP; KPMG Huazhen (Special General Partnership); Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants Ltd.; and PricewaterhouseCoopers Zhong Tian CPAs Limited. The SEC complains that the accounting firms engaged in the “willful refusal … to provide the Commission with audit workpapers and other materials prepared in connection with audit work or interim reviews performed for Clients A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I, in contravention of their legal obligations as foreign public accounting firms.” See the Order here.
