---

Companies Bill [Lords]

That is a fairly far-fetched picture. It is ridiculous to suggest that, because auditors report that action was taken against them in one jurisdiction, clients will flee from the firm that is being audited. However, on the hon. Lady’s basic point, I simply answer that the international composition that she talks about applies primarily to the big four, which are multinationals. They market themselves as multinationals and as having a common reputation: ““We are PriceWatersCooperhouse””—or whatever it is called. I forget whether it is PWC, which sounds fairly obscene to my ears, or PCW. I think it must be PWC. It markets itself as a multinational team, maintaining common standards and providing services on an international basis. If it does that, it is answerable in respect of its offices in other jurisdictions, and we should know what has happened to it in other jurisdictions. An astounding number of cases are relevant to my point. For instance, in the United States of America in 1995, Ernst and Young gave undertakings to"““comply with standards and guidelines issued by the…SEC…and the accounting profession regarding the independence of public accountants””." But when a case came up about it not having done that, the judge said that"““the evidence shows that EY has an utter disdain for the Commission’s rules and regulations on auditor independence…EY committed repeated violations of the auditor independence standards by behaviour that was reckless, highly unreasonable and negligent.””" That is what the judge said about Ernst and Young, which markets itself as a multinational providing services all over the world. We are obliged to publish performance and league tables for every other kind of organisation—such as schools—so why should we not have similar information on the firms that are auditing the accounts of public companies and putting their reputations on the line? Those firms do 99 per cent. of the audits of the FTSE 100 companies. All our proposals in amendments Nos. 684, 686 and 759 are important, because we do not accept that there is any threat to those big multinationals and their behaviour. Their reckless pursuit of profit endangers the reputation of sound, efficient, effective, respectable and reputable accountants and auditors, which are smaller and are not going in for the same kind of behaviour as the big four.