The scandal centres on claims that KPMG accessed and repurposed sensitive Lendlease board documents to win additional business, a practice now laid bare in parliament. The controversy was serious enough to be canvassed at a firm-wide partners’ meeting on Wednesday, signalling concern at the top of the partnership.
Two senior figures, Paul Rogers and Eileen Hoggett, have already been named in parliamentary proceedings, but KPMG has consistently refused to confirm any role they may have played. By publication deadline, the firm declined to answer detailed questions on the record.
Fresh complexity emerges as it becomes known that a third senior audit leader, Suzanne Bell, is in a long-term relationship with KPMG chair Martin Sheppard. That connection raises internal governance and independence questions, especially given Bell’s role on the audit side of the business.
KPMG would not comment on Bell at all, offering no explanation of how potential conflicts are managed. The silence contrasts with the public pressure the firm now faces from politicians and clients.
Tension also grows around past assurances on whistleblowing culture, after earlier testimony from former chief executive Andrew Yates was revisited in light of the scandal. Less than three years ago, Yates appeared before a parliamentary inquiry into consulting and strongly endorsed a robust “speak up” environment at KPMG.
He told the inquiry that staff should feel safe raising concerns, confident those concerns would be investigated and, if proven, acted upon, with protections in place for the complainant. That commitment now sits awkwardly beside allegations that insiders who raised internal warnings about the handling of confidential information were effectively told there was nothing to worry about.
