An appeal tribunal has overturned most of the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) earlier disciplinary findings against Deloitte, in the long-running saga of MG Rover.

Even the ICAEW’s own guide to professional ethics came in for censure as ‘vague and unhelpful’, and its guidance on the need to have regard for the ‘public interest’ could not alone form the basis of any misconduct charge.

These serious findings are bound to raise wider concerns about the reliance that may safely be placed on ICAEW ‘guidance’.

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