Under pressure from the government to reveal the surrogate nature of its practices in India, senior officials from PricewaterhouseCoopers have sought a meeting with the corporate affairs minister Salman Khurshid next week to clarify its position.
Following the Satyam scam, the accounting regulator Institute of Chartered Accountants of India had voiced its concerns over the opaque nature of functioning of foreign audit firms in India.
The company?s managing director Deepak Kapoor wrote to the government on May 19 seeking an appointment with Khurshid. In his letter, Kapoor asked for an explanation on the ?structure and functioning of PwC global network and its relationship with PwC network in India.?
This is not the first time PwC officials would be meeting the minister. Less than six months after company partners S Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Talluri were pulled up for the Rs 7,000 crore Satyam scam, the company?s global chairman Dennis Nally had met the minister clarifying the company?s stand.
Later in an interview to FE, Khurshid had categorically said that before the government considers any proposal to allow foreign audit firms full time practicing rights in India, these firms had to spell out unambiguously whether they would be willing to take full accountability for their actions.
?Have the big four actually pitched and said clearly that they want to come and establish full-fledged practice in India? They don?t actually say that. Their stand on the issue so far has been ambiguous,? Khurshid had said.
According to sources, the government is also looking to pass amendments in the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 to create more transparency and accountability for foreign audit firms practicing in India. Among the options they are mulling is to make it mandatory for a foreign audit firm to get a no-objection certificate from Icai before getting registered as a company.
?We are very clear on one thing that foreign firms have to be made more accountable,? president of Icai Amarjit Chopra had earlier said.
