You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Most companies at risk of being dragged into a corporate scandal will do anything to get out of the blast zone. They\u2019ll spin, distract and turn on each other. Just ask KPMG. In 2023 its chief executive Andrew Yates said the decision by staff at his rival, PwC, to leak details of a confidential Australian government tax crackdown was \u201cclearly unethical and unacceptable\u201d. He would\u2019ve handled the matter very differently.<\/p>\n
But now that KPMG is in the crosshairs over its own misuse of confidential information, the consulting firm\u2019s lawyers at Allens and Ashurst are taking a different tack. Despite turning in laughably limited reviews on KPMG\u2019s instruction that the firm then presented as thorough investigations, the lawyers are staying loyal to their client.<\/p>\n
They had their chance to go their own way in June, at a parliamentary hearing that gave them full legal protection to tip a bucket on their client. Back then, Labor MP Tania Lawrence said Ashurst\u2019s lawyers were \u201cbeing thrown under the bus\u201d by KPMG and used as a shield for the firm\u2019s \u201cincompetence\u201d.<\/p>\n
Did the lawyers want to challenge that, she wondered? In short, no. \u201cIt\u2019s not for me\u201d to criticise KPMG, said Lea Constantine, a partner at Ashurst. She and her colleagues at Allens instead provided highly technical clarifications on the scope of the work they did for KPMG.<\/p>\n
On Monday those reviews \u2013 which were never intended to be made public (and one can see why) \u2013 were released by parliament. There is always some scepticism when an organisation releases a so-called external review clearing an executive or validating a process, but the omissions from the work by Ashurst and Allens are so vast as to render their conclusions a joke.<\/p>\n
Ashurst, for example, delivered a document in August 2025 reviewing KPMG\u2019s internal investigation of claims by the whistleblower that consulting firm staff had misused internal client information. It was just three pages. Ashurst\u2019s lawyers didn\u2019t speak to the whistleblower. In fact, they noted that all their report did was to check that KPMG\u2019s investigation reflected the very limited materials that investigation was based on in the first place. \u201cWe have not independently verified the information contained in the investigated response,\u201d Ashurst noted.<\/p>\n
Or again, in February 2025, when Ashurst looked into the whistleblower\u2019s bullying claims and found them lacking. \u201cIt is to be noted, however, that in coming to these conclusions we have not had the benefit of speaking directly to any of the individuals concerned and assessing their credibility,\u201d Ashurst said. Caveat applied, job done!<\/p>\n
Allens did not find any greater investigative nous among its staff. In a December 12, 2025 document Allens decided that it didn\u2019t need to dig any deeper into the whistleblower\u2019s allegations about physical confidential files being shared because senior staff said it hadn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n
At this point, Allens\u2019 highly paid lawyers, graduates of the best universities in the country and abroad, with years of experience sleuthing out any ambiguity in a contract to exploit, suddenly lost all curiosity. Their bosses did not obtain further instructions from KPMG to conduct a more thorough review.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven [the staff denials], and given their credibility, we have assessed it to be disproportionate and unnecessary to attempt to undertake a review of mailboxes and other communications channels to seek to prove whether Lendlease board papers were communicated via email or some other channel that might leave a record of the circulation,\u201d Allens concluded. Interviewing other staff was simply unneeded for the same reason.<\/p>\n
Of course, it has turned out the whistleblower was right. Confidential documents were printed off and shared at KPMG. Email searches this year proved that. Numerous partners and executives, including KPMG\u2019s general counsel, have since resigned. Yates, the former chief executive who lorded his firm\u2019s ethics over PwC, and his chairman, Martin Sheppard, quit after comprehensively bungling KPMG\u2019s response.<\/p>\n
They are the men who bragged in March, when the whistleblower scandal first emerged publicly, that KPMG had been essentially cleared by \u201ctwo separate law firms\u201d it had engaged, \u201cone to review our firm\u2019s investigation into the claims and one to conduct its own external investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Just how much KPMG predetermined the outcome of the reviews it commissioned by shaping their terms and access, as opposed to the lawyers\u2019 divining the outcomes their client desired, is not clear. Nor are the fees that Allens and Ashurst received. In a sense, it does not matter. It\u2019s also important to make clear there is no suggestion the law firms broke any laws. The minds of both sides clearly met \u2013 and the unity has barely budged since.<\/p>\n
On Friday the parliamentary committee investigating KPMG has another hearing. It\u2019s all but certain that Ashurst and Allens will be called to appear, and their humiliation over this saga will be complete. For those firms, though, that looks like the cost of doing business. Embarrassment is transitory but the advertising value of showing corporate Australia that you will join them on the road as the semi-trailer hurtles towards you? That\u2019s priceless.<\/p>\n