An earthquake is brewing on the Polish auditing market. According to “PB” sources, the Polish Audit Oversight Agency (PANA), responsible for auditing statutory auditors, decided to remove Deloitte Audyt sp. Z oo sp. K. From the list of statutory auditors.
The reason they are supposed to be numerous negligence and breach of standards, mainly related to the case GetBackwhose auditor was Deloitte.
Neither the audit firm of the so-called The Big Four, nor the LORD, whose regulations make it impossible to inform about the decision taken until it becomes final, which is a long way to go. However, as “PB” notes, the path to making a decision is much shorter.
Deleting a company from the list means that statutory auditors working for it cannot sign financial statements, so in practice they cannot provide services. In total, Deloitte audits the books of 23 listed companies and several hundred non-public entities.
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A separate thread is that how the LORD’s decision – once it becomes final – may affect the high-profile lawsuit brought by the former GetBack (now Capitea) to the former auditor – writes “PB”. Last year, the fallen debt collector sued, inter alia, Deloitte Audyt sp. Z oo sp. K. For payment of PLN 293 million plus interest. He claims that the auditor was aware of the company’s irregularities, and yet he did not raise any objections to the financial statements, thus misleading the market.
GetBack is one of the biggest financial scandals in recent years. GetBack financed its activities by issuing bonds in private offers. In 2018, the frauds that took place in the debt collection company and companies cooperating with it began to come to light: falsifying financial statements, taking money out of the company. After the outbreak of the scandal, it turned out that the company had huge liquidity problems and was unable to pay off investors. There are almost 10,000 injured bondholders. most of them are private individuals. The GetBack Association of Injured Bondholders estimates that the losses incurred in the GetBack scandal by individuals in the country amount to as much as PLN 2.5 billion.
