Alo Mohan

BIG 4 WHISTLEBLOWER AND THE 10 BILLION HOLE Brendan Lyon @lyon_brendan hit send: I am sick of being bullied. KPMG Australia answered the way every caring employer does, with a conduct investigation into the man who wrote it. On 22 October I joined the @TransparencyTF Zoom meeting and heard the story of Brendan Lyon, a whistleblower. I attached his slides for anybody interested in this fascinating story. That email went to Michael Pratt, head of NSW Treasury, on 19 November 2020, with a suggestion to grow up or tell the truth. Brendan Lyon was a KPMG partner checking a new state rail company called TAHE, and he says Treasury's numbers were essentially made up and the real budget hole was around $10 billion. A rounding error, the kind anyone makes with a calculator and a deadline. Brendan Lyon says Michael Pratt told him to correct the errors or delete every mention of Treasury modelling, which was none of his business. Emails Brendan Lyon gave Parliament also show Michael Pratt telling KPMG's senior partners that they had a partner out of control and that he expected action. Peer review, Treasury style, is an email to the boss. Transport Secretary Rodd Staples, who backed Brendan Lyon, was dismissed that month. Brendan Lyon alleges bullying, reprisals and pointless disciplinary processes followed, and says Gary Wingrove, then chief executive of KPMG Australia, removed him from the partnership in April or May 2021. Gary Wingrove became KPMG's global chairman and chief executive on 1 October 2026, and nothing says lessons learned like a bigger desk. A 2022 parliamentary inquiry found it was highly inappropriate for NSW Treasury to instruct Brendan Lyon to amend his report. The Audit Office of NSW also reported that 23 reports, 1,023 pages, arrived around midnight on the morning the state accounts were signed. Light bedtime reading. Brendan Lyon's slides explain the bigger picture. Australia lets accounting firms alone run as partnerships of up to 1,000 people, with a legal cap on what they pay when they lose a damages case. Since 2007 the cap covers any service sold for profit, including consulting by people who are not accountants, so a shield for accountants now fits anyone with a business card. Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG earned about $9.8 billion in Australia in 2025, and by Brendan Lyon's count about 75% of it sits under that cap. Risk management has never looked so relaxed. Brendan Lyon built a scenario to show the maths. A firm earns $15 million valuing a super asset that is hard to sell, gets it wrong, and members lose $100 million. The court finds the firm half to blame, the cap trims the award from $50 million to $20 million, insurance pays $19 million and the firm covers a $1 million excess, which is pocket change for a good week. Members are left $30 million short. Spread over 1,000 partners, that is $15,000 each in fees up front and $1,000 each in damages later. Brendan Lyon says disciplinary records at Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand @Chartered_Accts, known as CA ANZ, show no enforcement against any Big Four firm or partner from 2013 to 2026. Policing yourself works wonders when nobody is looking. ASIC @asic_connect chair Sarah Court told Parliament in September that ASIC is reviewing 551 complaints about the Big Four and that its powers reach individual auditors only. On 14 October the Australian Financial Review reported that ASIC found EY and PwC approved a combined $80 billion of unlisted super investments without enough evidence. Reviewing is such a brave word. Brendan Lyon is challenging the cap in the NSW Supreme Court against CA ANZ and the Professional Standards Council of New South Wales, which approved the scheme. He started a fundraiser for his costs and on 7 August won an order limiting what he can be made to pay CA ANZ to $25,000. CA ANZ says its scheme protects consumers through insurance backed compensation, which is a fine name for a shield. Trial is set for 22 June 2027, which leaves plenty of time for more complaints. Brendan Lyon says he lost his partnership for checking the numbers. In his example, getting them wrong costs a partner $1,000. Link to the slides in the comments. Sources: @FinancialReview @asic_connect @accgtimes @claudinecassar @Chartered_Accts, others. --- @stevemiddi1 @MLorrM @Wftproof @johnmcdonnellMP @premnsikka @nw_nicholas @JohnCleese @BankConfidenti1