| International
[ 2021-02-14 ]
Auditor Grant Thornton ‘failed to check Patisserie Valerie cash levels’ Alleged mistakes by Grant Thornton (GT) in its
auditing of the failed Patisserie Valerie chain
have been laid bare in a £225 million court
claim.
Papers lodged by FRP Advisory, the liquidator, say
that GT’s negligence meant directors were
unaware that the café group had run out of cash.
The case would be a further blow to GT after it
lost a battle to overturn a judgment on failings
in its auditing of fire-engine leasing company
AssetCo last year.
The case against GT centres on allegations that it
failed to check Patisserie Valerie’s cash
position adequately — meaning that it did not
spot undisclosed overdrafts and accounts.
The papers say that GT failed to ask why the chain
received little to no interest on positive bank
balances. In 2017, Patisserie Valerie earned
£44,000 interest on a recorded bank balance of
£22.5 million — equivalent to a rate of just
0.2 per cent.
FRP also claims that GT did not ask why charges
for credit card use had fallen from £502,525 in
2014 to £355,899 three years later in a business
that was supposedly growing. Source - The Times, UK
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