Overview
- KPMG confirmed this week that confidential client information was shared internally and may have been used to win new business, an admission that followed whistleblower allegations first made public in March 2026.
- Chief executive Andrew Yates and national audit head Julian McPherson have resigned and chief operating officer Eileen Hoggett has stepped aside while the firm’s internal review is replaced by an external inquiry led by law firm Allens.
- The corporate regulator ASIC has launched a formal investigation and has named two registered auditors, Paul Rogers and Eileen Hoggett, as subjects of the probe while warning it can only take enforcement action against individual auditors rather than the partnership as a whole.
- Federal and state agencies are demanding written assurances, reassessing contracts or moving to retender services— the Reserve Bank will re-tender its whistleblower hotline and analyses show hundreds of active KPMG contracts with combined values in the hundreds of millions.
- The crisis has revived calls for stronger oversight of the Big Four, tightened whistleblower protections for partnerships and possible procurement sanctions, and will be tested at a scheduled federal parliamentary inquiry that could influence wider policy changes.