In Hong Kong, Ernst & Young agreed today to make an undisclosed “substantial payment” to liquidators of Akai Holdings, Hong Kong’s biggest ever bankruptcy. The FT reports that E&Y admitted that “certain audit documents produced were no longer reliable.”
E&Y had been Akai’s auditor prior to the company’s collapse. Although the liquidators’ case has been ongoing since 2002, the FT reports that
new evidence suddenly came to light last Friday, when the liquidators got hold of the original versions of Akai’s files from E&Y, from which they claimed that more than 80 documents were doctored or faked.
E&Y reportedly suspended the partner who was Akai’s audit manager at that time after it determined that “certain documents” could no longer be relied on due to the partner’s actions in early 2000.