Accounting large EY is being investigated over its audits of the Publish Place of work relating to the Horizon scandal from March 2015 to March 2018.
The Monetary Reporting Council (FRC), the United Kingdom’s accounting regulator, stated it’ll test whether or not EY met its requirements “with explicit connection with issues associated with the Horizon IT device”.
The device evolved by way of Fujitsu was once on the center of the Publish Place of work scandal that noticed loads of postmasters wrongly convicted.
EY stated it takes its obligations “extraordinarily critically” and can be “totally cooperating” with the FRC.
The Publish Place of work declined to remark.
The inside track of the investigation comes as sub-postmaster campaigners Lee Castleton, Seema Misra, and Chris Head can be made OBEs at Windsor Fortress on Wednesday.
Greater than 900 sub-postmasters had been prosecuted for stealing on account of fallacious data from the Horizon laptop device. It’s been known as the United Kingdom’s maximum well-liked miscarriage of justice.
The Publish Place of work itself took many instances to court docket, prosecuting 700 other folks between 1999 and 2015.
One of the most unanswered questions of the Publish Place of work inquiry is the place all of the cash wrongly taken from sufferers of the Horizon scandal in reality went.
The FRC needs to center of attention in particular at the function of statutory auditors – other folks legally required to study the monetary statements of an organization – in assembly the auditing requirements of that point.
On the other hand, the FRC stated on Wednesday the new public hearings performed as a broader inquiry into the Horizon scandal didn’t duvet EY’s audits of the Publish Place of work, so might not be coated by way of its investigation.
In June 2024, the inquiry was once informed the Publish Place of work’s auditors EY warned Alice Perkins, the Publish Place of work’s chair in 2011, that the Horizon device was once “an actual chance”.
EY was once additionally famous as asking “does it seize knowledge correctly?”.
Notes from the assembly with EY point out a sub-postmaster stated there was once “a techniques drawback” with Horizon.
The inquiry heard that Ms Perkins didn’t elevate considerations internally about this nor did she point out the EY assembly when questions on Horizon got here up in years that adopted.
