ASIC bans ex-PwC partner Peter Collins for eight years
The former PwC Australia partner at the heart of the firm’s tax leaks scandal has been banned from providing financial services for eight years.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said Peter Collins was “not a fit and proper person to provide financial services” and that it was in the public interest for him to be barred from working in the sector for a period.
Peter Collins, former head of international tax for PwC Australia.
ASIC found that Mr Collins, of Sandringham, Victoria, had “disclosed confidential information he obtained in his roles as a tax adviser to the Commonwealth Treasury and the Australian Board of Taxation”.
Mr Collins was an authorised representative of Australian financial services licensee PricewaterhouseCoopers Securities from March 1, 2004, to July 14, 2006, and again from December 9, 2013, to October 6, 2022.
“For the duration of his ban, Mr Collins cannot provide financial services, control an entity that carries on a financial services business or perform any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business,” ASIC said in a statement published on Friday afternoon.
ASIC deputy chairman Sarah Court earlier told the joint parliamentary committee on corporations and financial services that Mr Collins did not take up the 48-hour grace period to appeal against the decision or apply for a suppression order of the finding.
ASIC deputy chairman Sarah Court. Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Collins can apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
Ms Court said ASIC was now working through the list of about 160 PwC personnel who also had financial service licences through PwC Securities “to ascertain whether or not any of those persons were involved with the” Tax Practitioners Board tax leaks matter.
Labor senator Deborah O’Neill said PwC had “tolerated” Mr Collins’ behaviour while he was at the firm.
“ASIC’s finding is a condemnation of Mr Peter John Collins’ gross misuse of confidential government information, and of the behaviour which PwC had not only tolerated, but seemed to actively cultivate,” she said.
Mr Collins was deregistered by the TPB for dishonesty and had his registration as a tax agent cancelled for two years in January. The TPB found he had shared confidential government information with PwC personnel who used the material to help clients sidestep tax laws that Mr Collins was helping Treasury develop.
The scandal has rocked PwC’s local operation and heightened scrutiny of the multibillion-dollar consulting sector. Legal inquiries ordered by the firm found the matter was the result of a “combination of multiple failings” by individuals and the firm’s governance, culture and accountability systems.
Read more about the PwC tax leaks scandal
- How confidential tax information was shared at PwC At least six former PwC partners were involved in leaking confidential information from Treasury, the Tax Office and Board of Tax, legal reports concluded.
- ‘Shadow’ culture of profit first blamed for PwC tax leaks scandal A scathing report into the big four consultancy laid bare the brutal, uncompromising culture at the top that led to the firm’s tax leaks scandal.
- ‘Growth at all costs’: what PwC report found The mindset was said to have been “growth at all costs” with a spotlight on “revenue, revenue, revenue”.
- ‘We are deeply sorry for that behaviour and the culture’ The full text of the open letter from PwC Australia CEO Kevin Burrowes.
- Rear Window | Ziggy Switkowski’s guide to making it at PwC The veteran reviewer’s examination of PwC can be read as a treasure map to consultancy riches.
- PwC global clears international partners of tax leaks wrongdoing An investigation by law firm Linklaters has cleared overseas PwC partners of using confidential information related to the tax leaks scandal “for commercial gain”.
- Chanticleer | Haughty PwC made the same mistakes it preached about Ziggy Switkowski’s review of PwC reads like a description of everything that went on inside the big banks before the royal commission. With one crucial difference.
- The Fin Podcast | Can PwC’s Australian business survive the tax leaks scandal? Neil Chenoweth, Edmund Tadros and Joe Aston on why it can never be business as usual for the big four consulting firms.
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