From crumbs to corporate collapse, the way fraudsters cook the books has changed little, although the ingredients have become far from immaterial, warns Emile Woolf

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has revised its standard for the identification and assessment of risks of material misstatement in an audit of financial statements, with the aim of introducing a more robust and consistent approach

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has hit Grant Thornton UK with a £3m fine, discounted to £1.95m, over a series of ethical and independence failures in its auditing of Conviviality Retail, part of the collapsed alcohol wholesaler and retailer group

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has given PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte four years in which to agree to operational separation of their audit practices, in a bid to drive up audit quality and end what the regulator dubbed ‘persistent cross subsidy’ from the rest of the firm

Audit firms have responded appropriately to the need to enhance their evaluation of companies’ going concern assessments during the Covid-19 emergency, and the additional measures are being applied consistently, according to the Financial Reporting Council (FRC)

The National Audit Office (NAO) has published the latest in a series of challenging reports on defence procurement, highlighting how significant uncertainties over the future costs of plans to bring new aircraft carriers into service may limit their effectiveness

Grant Thornton has identified a £19m hole in the accounts at national car dealership Lookers, stemming from fraudulent expenses claims and incorrect or inconsistent application of policies, processes and accounting standards

IT services provider Redcentric has been given a public censure by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for committing market abuse and ordered to pay £11.4m compensation to investors, while three former executives face legal proceedings

The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a guide to help audit and risk committees of government departments and arms-length bodies advise their organisations on financial management and reporting during, and in the period immediately after, the Covid-19 outbreak

Three audit firms – PwC, EY and Oliver Clive & Co – are facing a Financial Reporting Council (FRC) investigation into their auditing of London Capital & Finance (LC&F), a mini-bond investment specialist which collapsed last year amid controversy over the regulation of its high-risk products

The National Audit Office (NAO) reviewed £1.7 trillion of government expenditure over the past year, and reports its work led to positive financial impacts of £1.1bn

Beleaguered German payments fintech Wirecard has been forced to admit that €1.9bn (£1.7bn) of funds which auditors EY reported as ‘missing’ may never have existed, while its former CEO has been arrested on possible fraud charges