Powerful parliamentary oversight committees in the US and the UK have been urged to pressure consultancy firm PwC to publish a report used to clear its international partners of wrongdoing.
In response to a scandal involving the misuse of confidential Australian Treasury information about proposed multinational tax avoidance laws, PwC global commissioned the law firm Linklaters to investigate the conduct of its international partners.
The law firm’s advice has been citied by PwC’s global executive to assure regulators there was no evidence that confidential information received by international partners was used for commercial gain. But the executive said six partners should have raised questions about whether the information was confidential.
The Linklaters report has not been published online or provided to the Australian Treasury, the Australian Taxation Office, the Tax Practitioners Board that regulates accountants, or an Australian Senate inquiry that has helped expose the extent of the PwC scandal.
PwC Australia’s chief executive, Kevin Burrowes, has also said the Linklaters report was not shared with anyone in PwC Australia. Last month, Burrowes was unable to tell the inquiry the names or locations of the international partners investigated by Linklaters.
On Thursday, the inquiry’s chair, Liberal senator Richard Colbeck, met with representatives of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to discuss ways to obtain the document. PwC’s global executive is based in New York.
Colbeck has also written to the UK Public Accounts Committee, given the global firm has a large presence in London. The UK committee has several ongoing inquiries that were considering the role of consultants, including PwC.
“There are clearly international connections, but our jurisdiction is limited to Australia,” Colbeck told Guardian Australia.
“This offending behaviour against the Australian taxpayer clearly had an international target and it appears to me that PwC are trying to quarantine it to Australia. I don’t believe that’s acceptable.”
PwC Australia was contacted for comment, but referred questions to the global executive. The executive referred Guardian Australia to a 27 September statement, which said most partners who received information from PwC Australia did not realise it was confidential.
Colbeck said the Australian government and taxpayers “deserve to have an understanding of what the international links are”.
“If I can’t do that work here locally, I’ll reach out to other jurisdictions to see where I can find assistance and that’s what I’ve done,” Colbeck said.
Colbeck, along with other senators involved in the ongoing inquiry, has questioned the apparent findings of the Linklaters report, given the contents of hundreds of internal PwC Australia emails that have been tendered.
One email from 2016 showed partners used confidential information to secure work from “brand-defining” US companies in a process known as “the North American Project”. The partners said they had worked with “other PwC network firms extensively (notably PwC US, PwC Singapore, and PwC Netherlands)”.
The Labor senator Deborah O’Neill, who is also part of the Senate inquiry, was not satisfied by the global division’s assurance and questioned how thoroughly the firm had investigated its international involvement.
“The claim that international PwC partners and firms are devoid of responsibility or misconduct is not based on the determination of any genuinely independent investigative body or process,” O’Neill told Guardian Australia in September.
Another member of the inquiry, the Greens senator Barbara Pocock, has claimed PwC’s global executive was “clearly worried about damage to their brand and are desperately trying to lay the blame squarely at the door of PwC Australia”.
“The assertion that none of the international operatives who received and used the confidential information from the tax office have any culpability in this matter is a snow job,” Pocock said, using a term that refers to a deception.
PwC Australia has repeatedly apologised for the breach of confidentiality. An internal review of the firm by the former Telstra executive Ziggy Switkowski found some staff believed “revenue is king” and that partners who exceeded financial expectations were considered “heroes”.
“The situation is deeply disappointing and Dr Switkowski’s review is very difficult for us to read,” Burrowes said last month.
