Ex-KPMG exec pleads guilty to fraud

A former executive director at “big four” global accountancy firm KPMG pleaded guilty Tuesday to scheming to help the company cheat on oversight inspections, federal prosecutors announced.

Cynthia Holder, a former accounting inspections leader later hired by KPMG, was one of six people charged in January with illegally using confidential information stolen from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board so that KPMG could perform better on PCAOB inspections between 2016 and 2017.

The oversight board is a non-profit organization created by Congress to prevent accounting scandals like those of the Enron era in the early 2000s.

The charges follow KPMG’s decision last year to fire five former partners, including the head of its audit practice, after the company improperly learned which audits government regulators planned to review. Prosecutors say that while she was employed by the PCAOB, Holder maneuvered for work at KPMG, feeding the company information about which of its audits the board would inspect.

After being hired, Holder likewise stole confidential information on her way out the door that she shared with KPMG and then later attempted to destroy evidence, the US Attorney’s office said.

“This was a revolving door tainted by fraud and today we hold the defendant accountable for her conduct,” US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement.

Holder, 52, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to the defraud both the PCAOB and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud. (AFP)