The Satyam fraud is not the sole brush with infamy for Pricewaterhouse, one of the world’s top auditing firms. Pricewaterhouse is already in deep trouble in relation to its suspect auditing of the collapsed Global Trust Bank, for which it is being probed by the disciplinary committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
In the GTB case, Pricewaterhouse was hauled up for alleged negligence in auditing of books of the bank and failing to detect huge levels of NPAs. The NPAs had accumulated due to massive exposure made by the erstwhile bank into the stock market, which Pricewaterhouse is alleged to have overlooked.
In another instance, Lovelock & Lewes – another auditing entity of PricewaterhouseCoop ers (PwC) – was the auditor of DSQ Software, which was found guilty of manipulating share prices and falsification of accounts by Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) of the ministry of corporate affairs
Firstly PW did not fail to detect the NPAs for GTB. The Audited reports aer still available from internet and you would see that PW has raised a going concern for the NPAs of GTB.
Secondly PW has not been hauled up – as investigations are underway and may remain so – as ICAI cannot come to a conclusion.