The federal treasury is assessing what further action to take against PwC Australia in response to the firm revealing a number of additional confidentiality breaches involving government secrets.
The treasury has already referred the firm to the Australian federal police, which has an ongoing investigation into how confidential information about multinational tax policy was misused to make millions of dollars from private sector clients.
Separate to that breach, PwC Australia has now admitted that, in 2016, a partner forwarded documents related to confidential consultation with treasury and Australian Taxation Office (ATO) officials regarding the GST treatment of digital currencies to colleagues who had not signed a confidentiality agreement.
“As you know, Treasury referred previous unauthorised disclosures to the AFP for investigation,” a Treasury spokesperson said.
“Treasury is reviewing the statement of facts released by PwC, including some of the claims over other disclosures made by PwC personnel, and will consider what further appropriate action should be taken.”
In 2017, a now former PwC partner was invited to participate in Treasury’s black economy taskforce reference group, provided a confidentiality agreement was signed. PwC allege that on several occasions, the partner forwarded materials from the group to colleagues who had not signed agreements.
A partner is accused of sharing confidential information from a treasury group called the tax treaties advisory panel on several occasions. That information was subject to confidentiality agreements that prohibited it being shared. The panel dealt with international tax policy.
One partner disclosed details of a meeting with the board of taxation on “OECD anti-hybrids rules” despite being told to keep the details “confidential at this stage”. On the same day as the meeting, the partner shared the details with a colleague and said: “No need to share because all supposed to be secret.”
The firm has also revealed that three partners later shared a draft OECD report into profit shifting with colleagues, in breach of a confidentiality agreement.
PwC Australia has admitted there were other instances where information related to government consultations were leaked, but cannot determine whether they were all subject to confidentiality clauses.
A PwC spokesperson said the firm was “aware of and complies with our legal obligations”. The spokesperson said the “statement of facts” was “undertaken with the assistance of external counsel”.
Labor senator Deborah O’Neill, who is a member of a Senate inquiry that has exposed the scale of the PwC scandal, said the additional breaches needed to be taken “very seriously”.
“The words that have been chosen by the treasury are very clear. They are very precise. They indicate continuing investigation and action,” O’Neill told Guardian Australia. “This is not over by a long shot.”
O’Neill questioned the independence of investigations ordered by PwC Australia and noted that a probe by the law firm Linklaters, which has been used by the firm to claim no international partners used confidential information for commercial gain, has not been publicly released.
“It is important that Australians and people in the sector understand that internal inquiries funded by PwC, and about PwC, are for PwC,” O’Neill said. “They are not documents that have been interrogated in the public place by the relevant authorities as yet. This is not done.”
The ATO noted PwC Australia’s disclosure but had “no further comment at this time”.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock, who is also a member of the Senate inquiry, said the government needed to ensure PwC Australia was held accountable for the additional breaches.
“The fact that PwC has now admitted to numerous breaches of confidentiality by sharing secret government information does not absolve them from responsibility,” Pocock said.
“These are serious matters that go to trust between government agencies and private contractors and PwC must face consequences
“They won’t tell us who was involved or whether any penalties were applied. What they are really saying is ‘trust us, we’re dealing with it’ before disappearing behind the cloak of silence again.”
The warning from Treasury comes days after the tax agent regulator, the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB), confirmed it had launched a formal investigation into another PwC partner within the past fortnight, in addition to multiple preliminary investigations into other matters.
“Our preliminary investigations into one aspect have concluded and we have commenced a formal investigation into one further aspect,” the TPB chair, Peter de Cure, told the Senate inquiry this week. “That does not mean there won’t be further preliminary inquiries.”
