PwC and EY told a panel of British lawmakers they would mirror a change already underway at another Big Four accounting firm, KPMG, in a bid to end a “perception” of conflict between selling audit and consulting work to the same customer.
Consulting is better paid than audit work, raising concerns that an accountant won’t challenge a company’s management properly regarding an audit for fear of losing more lucrative advisory work.
KPMG said last November it would phase out advisory work for its British accounting clients as the Big Four faced calls from lawmakers to be broken up after the collapse of construction firm Carillion, which KPMG audited.
“We will do a ban on anything for audit clients other than audit related services,” Kevin Ellis, chairman and senior partner of PwC UK told parliament’s business committee.
