Is KPMG being "Enroned"?-Similarities to the Tricontinental matter in Australia

The following is an excerpt from a report by Roger Trapp in The Independent , Wednesday 26 January 1994


THE ACCOUNTANCY firm KPMG Peat Marwick is to pay the Victoria state government Adollars 136m (pounds 63.6m) to settle a court case arising from the collapse of the merchant bank Tricontinental Group.

The Tricontinental case stemmed from KPMG Australia's audit of the accounts of the bank, which collapsed in 1990 with a shareholders' funds deficit of AUD 2.6bn.

At the time the bank was owned by the state government of Victoria , but it was sold to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia after the collapse.

KPMG Australia 's executive chairman, John Harkness, agreed that the deal was the only practical solution to a very difficult situation. 'The sheer enormity of this case made the prospect of pursuing justice through the usual legal channels totally impractical,' he said.

In a sense, Tricontinental  Merchant Bank was to the State Bank Of Victoria what 1 MDB is to the Malaysian Government and taxpayer;an organisation left in the hands of a young "go getter" with little experience but regardless entrusted with the management of billions of dollars of borrowed money, KPMG's  Melbourne partners  handled the audit exclusively, saving the international partners financial embarrassment. However, as the 1 MDB story below illustrates, the Global Partnership would be hard pressed to distance themselves from the Malaysian partners.

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