I've heard that subsidiaries of the big accounting firms are essentially separate companies and really just share the firms name, I'm not sure if that's true or not but in the case of the main Wall Street firms, its most definitely is not.
Goldman is Goldman everywhere which makes this more concerning.
Even more troubling are reports that the new GS CEO, David Solomon, reviewed multiple of the 1MDB deals. To be fair its not clear if he personally reviewed them or they were just a meeting note in a senior partners meeting.
Going in GS favour is that they fired Leissner, the GS point man, when the allegations originally came out in 2016 and they self reported the incident, though its not clear if they reported it before the original incident was first reported on.
I'd imagine since GS is blaming the bankers ability to circumvent internal controls to catch bribes and kick backs, that things are about to get even more bureaucratic over there.
Speculation
Also watch for any indication of events that can tie this to the Euro zone. I have a feeling regulators in Europe would love to lay a large fine on a US bank, given how many fines European banks have paid in the US recently:)
A research note I just saw, estimated this could cost GS more than $1B in fines in the US alone.
The Big Four are indeed organised as groups. A headquarters entity (three in London, but KPMG is instead based in the Netherlands) owns the name, and then hundreds of notionally independent companies in other countries around the world use that name under license (for a fee and other conditions).
In practice obviously that headquarters organisation has considerable control, and key people merrily teleport from one "independent company" to another over their careers.
The appropriate word to describe them is probably "corrupt". If I can have two words, how about "very corrupt" ?
Re: the subs of accounting firms, you are absolutely correct. It's not totally unheard of for those firms to switch between affiliate firms as they become unhappy with the relationship.
They basically license the brand out, whether they're willing to acknowledge it or not.
Goldman is Goldman everywhere which makes this more concerning.
Even more troubling are reports that the new GS CEO, David Solomon, reviewed multiple of the 1MDB deals. To be fair its not clear if he personally reviewed them or they were just a meeting note in a senior partners meeting.
Going in GS favour is that they fired Leissner, the GS point man, when the allegations originally came out in 2016 and they self reported the incident, though its not clear if they reported it before the original incident was first reported on.
I'd imagine since GS is blaming the bankers ability to circumvent internal controls to catch bribes and kick backs, that things are about to get even more bureaucratic over there.
Speculation Also watch for any indication of events that can tie this to the Euro zone. I have a feeling regulators in Europe would love to lay a large fine on a US bank, given how many fines European banks have paid in the US recently:)
A research note I just saw, estimated this could cost GS more than $1B in fines in the US alone.