Record £10m fine for bungled BHS accounts

THE accountants who gave BHS a clean bill of health days before it was sold for £1 face a record £10m fine – and the beancounter responsible faces being banned for up to 15 years.

The Financial Reporting Council is expected to announce the penalties against PwC and senior partner Steve Denison this week, Sky News reported. Denison, 53, who is chairman of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, also faces a fine of up to £500,000. He reportedly left PwC last week.

PwC came under fire for signing off BHS as a going concern days before it was sold by retail tycoon Philip Green to serial bankrupt Dominic Chappell for £1 in 2015.

About a year later BHS collapsed with the loss of 11,000 jobs and a black hole in its pension fund. Green agreed to pay £363m into the fund last February.

A spokesman for PwC said: ‘We recognise and accept that there were serious shortcomings with this audit work and that it is important to learn the necessary lessons.

‘We are sorry that our work fell well below the professional standards expected of us and that we demand of ourselves.’