The Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC) has fined PwC Hong Kong a financial penalty of HK$300m (£28.3m) for ‘egregious and wholly unacceptable’ failures on four audits for Evergrande Group for 2019 and 2020 year end financial statements.

PwC Hong Kong was issued with the second penalty related to the firm’s audit misconduct for the Chinese real estate giant, and was called out for ‘serious and egregious audit failures, substantial weaknesses in the audit firm’s governance and monitoring controls, and the profound and far-reaching impact on the public interest’.

As well as fining the Big Four audit firm as a corporate entity, two former PwC partners, Cheung Siu Cheong and Chow Sai Keung, who were audit engagement partners on the Evergrande account overseeing the audits, and were also both registered responsible individuals (RI) at PwC’s South China and Hong Kong offices.