The audit regulator slammed KPMG as an entity as well as Nicola Quayle, a former senior partner based in Manchester, who is still a partner at the firm, over audit failures relating to a failure of professional audit scepticism when auditing complex supplier arrangements in the financial statements of an unnamed client company for the 2015/16 financial year.

The sanction notice document has been extensively redacted to conceal the details of the client company. Total penalties amounted to £700,000 before they were reviewed and reduced for various reasons, and included a £650,000 fine for the firm and initial £45,000 fine for the individual partner.

In an unusual move the audit regulator, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), redacted the name of the company involved, and said that the sanctions and fines related to problems over KPMG’s audit scepticism over the audit process associated with ‘complex supplier engagements’ and reporting of ‘promotional income’.

An FRC