Audit and consulting firm Price Waterhouse has moved the Securities Appellate Tribunal against an order by market regulator SEBI barring all its 11 accounting firms from auditing listed Indian firms for two years due to alleged lapses.
SAT will hear Price Waterhouse's plea against the ban on Friday, the spokesperson of the audit firm told BloombergQuint.
Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Board of India had barred the entire network of Price Waterhouse firms for recurring lapses in the auditing of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.'s financials between 2000 and 2008. The Satyam accounting fraud, by the admission of its own founder and chairman Ramalinga Raju, involved over Rs 7,000 crore in misstated financials. SEBI also ordered the disgorgement of Rs 27 crore in wrongful gains by two PW partners and Price Waterhouse Bangalore.
Following SEBI's ban, PW had sounded confident of getting a stay on the order before it came into effect. The firm added that it “learnt the lessons of Satyam" and has since invested heavily in building a robust and high quality audit practice.
Also Read: The Undoing Of Price Waterhouse In The Satyam Scam Case
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