The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) fined KPMG LLP £1,750,000, discounted to £1,023,750 for cooperation with the investigation, while former KPMG partner Anthony Sykes was given a £75,000 penalty, reduced to £43,875, over misconduct related to the audit work for the year end 30 April 2020 accounts. Both the firm and Sykes were given a severe reprimand over the quality of their work.

The inspectors criticised the conduct of the audit team, stating that it ‘demonstrated a serious lack of basic competence’.

Sykes was made aware of performance issues within the audit team, and asked for further scrutiny to be applied, but his awareness did not prompt him to personally apply closer scrutiny to the audit team’s work over the stock counts, or to ensure that sufficient scrutiny had otherwise been applied by others within the audit team.