EY Under Fire: Audits of Post Office Horizon System Spark Major Investigation
So, here’s what’s making waves right now—EY, one of the so-called Big Four accounting firms, is officially under investigation. Yep, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK's accounting watchdog, is taking a hard look at EY's audits of the Post Office from 2015 to 2018. Why? Because of the notorious Horizon IT scandal.
Now, if you're not familiar with Horizon, here's the background: it's a software system developed by Fujitsu that was used by the Post Office. Sounds simple, right? But this system led to what many are calling the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. It wrongly showed discrepancies in branch accounts, and as a result, over 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted—many for theft, fraud, or false accounting. Some even went to prison, lost their livelihoods, or suffered irreparable damage to their lives—all because of a faulty computer system.
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Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office pursued legal action against hundreds of its own workers. All the while, external auditors like EY were supposedly overseeing the financial statements. That’s where the FRC’s current investigation steps in. They're specifically checking whether EY lived up to professional standards during their audits, especially regarding anything tied to Horizon.
Here’s the thing: recent public inquiries into the Horizon scandal didn’t really dig into EY’s involvement. So, this investigation is meant to fill that gap. EY, for their part, says they’re taking the matter very seriously and that they’re cooperating fully with the FRC. But given the scale of the damage caused by the Horizon scandal, there’s growing public pressure to determine if EY missed, ignored, or possibly overlooked signs that something was very wrong with the IT system or the numbers in those accounts.
This isn’t just about technical failures anymore—it’s about accountability. It's about whether those who had a duty to ensure transparency and accuracy did their jobs. EY, with its global reputation, now finds itself in the spotlight. And honestly, if it turns out they didn’t meet their responsibilities, this could be yet another crack in the already fragile public trust in major auditing firms.
The Horizon debacle shook the nation, and now it’s shaking up the institutions that were supposed to provide oversight. We’ll be watching closely to see where this investigation leads—and who else it may implicate in what’s already been a devastating chapter of British justice.
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