AustralianSuper pension fund halts work with auditor PwC

Sydney — Australia’s largest pension fund will pause use of the domestic unit of auditor PwC as the “big four” firm reels from a national scandal over its use of confidential government tax plans to drum up work with global clients.

The roughly A$290bn ($196.71bn) fund, AustralianSuper, has frozen new contracts with PwC and expressed concerns about the scandal “at the highest level”, according to a spokesperson.

An audit contract worth A$1.6m in 2022 will be reviewed this year, the spokesperson added. The fund spent A$700,000 on nonaudit services in 2022, according to filings.

AustralianSuper’s move widens the fallout from a scandal over the misuse of government tax plans and raises the risk that private-sector clients could follow a growing list of government agencies reviewing or pausing their work with the firm.

The Reserve Bank of Australia on Wednesday froze future work while the treasury and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority have hinted that the firm is blacklisted.

The scandal centres on a former PwC Australia tax partner who was consulting with the government on laws to prevent corporate tax avoidance and shared confidential drafts with colleagues that were used to pitch US technology companies, among others, for work.

Tax officials told a senate inquiry this week they had foiled several attempts by multinational firms to subvert new tax avoidance laws as a result of the leak.

The A$150bn AwareSuper said the fund was working with PwC to determine whether tax advisers who had worked with the fund were implicated in the leak. An internal review into external consultants was also under way, a spokesperson added.

Reuters