Brand PwC, Guilty by association?

Of course, assuming guilt by association in normal circumstances is not acceptable. But what if the association is that of an auditor, to a firm that has admitted to fraud?

Brand PwC has a lot to answer as the Audit firm to now discredited IT major, Satyam Computers. The Indian government has said that it will examine the role of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) after the country’s fourth-largest information technology company admitted that it had falsified its accounts. For PWC, this doesn't seem to be a first time.

What now remains to be seen is if PwC will go the Arthur Andersen way. The larger marketing lesson here is, if you are associated with a corporate brand, chances are you will go down, if the associated corporate brand does.

Guilt by association, you see.

Comments

SG said…
Dear Prof. Ray,

I think its more than mere "guilt by association". As an auditor of a company, PWC should have been able to see the fraud.

And if they did not detect the fraud, they failed in their trade. More importantly, if they detected the fraud and still went ahead with those results, its criminal!
Ray Titus said…
Dead on, right! Absolutely, I agree.

Either its incompetency or criminal.

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