Will Ernst & Young's Akai Settlement Unravel?

by Angie Mak, 12 October 2009

topics:
Accounting and Regulations External Audit

tags:
Akai Christopher Ho Ernst & Young James Ting

If Ernst & Young Hong Kong thought it had achieved closure after agreeing to settle a negligence case filed by Akai liquidator Borrelli Walsh, it couldn’t be more wrong. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper reports that the auditing firm’s global partners expect the Hong Kong unit to singlehandedly raise the US$200 million that Borrelli Walsh agreed to accept as settlement.

It is unclear whether the Hong Kong partners can come up with the money – or what happens to their audit clients and employees if they fail. Ernst & Young is the external auditor in Hong Kong of high profile companies like mainland Chinese bank ICBC, Time Warner, Hilton, Marriott, McDonald’s and ING Group. Its Hong Kong office is one of the territory’s major accounting firms, along with PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Deloitte.

According to the Post, global COO John Ferraro has made clear that the Ernst & Young group would rather forsake the Hong Kong unit than dip into its main funds, which would severely affect the entire partnership’s long-term dividends. Each of the more than 140 associated firms in the Ernst & Young network is a separate legal entity that has no liability for the acts or omissions of others in the group.

It was Ferraro, however, who negotiated with Borrelli and Walsh on the settlement, recounts the Post. He reportedly succeeded in halving Borrelli and Walsh’s original demand that Ernst & Young pay the sum of US$400 million in damages for negligence in auditing Akai, the failed electronics corporation. The accounting firm’s global partnership had been expected to back up its Hong Kong office by putting forth the agreed amount.

To accelerate the lawsuit’s settlement, the global partnership pledged to help raise the US$200 million, said the newspaper. But according to the Post’s inside sources, the initial cheque the global partnership cut was intended only as a holding payment to give Ernst and Young Hong Kong time to borrow enough money to make good on the agreement.

Ernst & Young owns a self-funded insurer that could potentially provide funds for part of the settlement. But this company is said to have only US$50 million to cover claims for the two years that the Hong Kong partnership was charged with performing negligent auditing services.

Anatomy of a Scandal

Ernst & Young Hong Kong was the auditor of Akai Holdings in the 1990s, a global empire owned by entrepreneur James Ting, who suddenly disappeared in 2000 after Akai reported more than US$1 billion in losses. He was sentenced to jail in 2005, but was later released on appeal because of errors by the prosecution.

Borrelli and Walsh, the scrappy firm appointed by the courts to unwind bankrupt Akai’s affairs, alleged that Ting siphoned US$800 million from the firm in part by conspiring with Christopher Ho, a relative of Macau tycoon Stanley Ho, and his Grande Holdings. Christopher Ho denies the charges, but has settled with Borrelli and Walsh for a reported US$100 million.

I hope Ernst & Young will

Submitted by Abigail Lawson on 23 October 2012 - 10:34am

I hope Ernst & Young will find the appropriate solutions for that matter, they should hire a legal expert in terms of finding litigation support services solutions as well as to fix what is damaged.

US$200 million ,really a

Submitted by Anonymousd on 23 November 2009 - 5:08pm

US$200 million ,really a huge number.

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