Source: Sharecast
P&O Ferries has hired a tiny four-person auditing firm to replace the Big Four accountant that resigned from approving its annual accounts in March. The move appears to raise further questions over the governance and financial health of the company, which has attracted a string of negative headlines after its controversial sacking of 786 mainly British ferry workers in 2022 – who it then replaced with low-cost agency staff from countries including India, the Philippines and Malaysia. – Guardian
Donald Trump said he “may have to force” the US Federal Reserve to change interest rates after labelling its chair Jerome Powell a “numbskull”. In his latest attack on the central bank, the president said Mr Powell, who the US leader has repeatedly criticised, should slash rates by a whole percentage point and blamed him for keeping America’s debt costs high after better than expected inflation data. – Telegraph
The House of Lords has heavily criticised City regulators for swamping firms with unnecessary compliance burdens after the boss of Nationwide revealed her company was forced to respond to 4,519 letters from regulators and attend 488 meetings in a single year. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority were accused of a “deeply entrenched risk-averse culture” that was slowing growth in both the finance sector and the wider economy. – The Times
KPMG has been fined just shy of £700,000 for not realising that a senior partner at another firm had been working on the audit of a subsidiary of Carr’s, the agriculture and engineering company, for a year too long. The Financial Reporting Council determined that KPMG, as Carr’s main auditor, was wrong to rely on the work of another audit firm responsible for signing off the 2021 accounts of the subsidiary because the lead partner had held that role for six years, one more than is permitted. – The Times