Hyderabad:
The Satyam scam is undoubtedly having far reaching ramifications not just on how corporate frauds are perpetrated but also the conduct of the auditors.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is facing the heat for having neither prevented nor detected the frauds. So where exactly was the lacunae?
The pressure is building on PricewaterhouseCoopers and the auditor may just be showing signs of buckling under pressure.
Sources tell NDTV that PwC may just close down its operations in Hyderabad. The city which has been the center of the Satyam storm.
NDTV has learnt that employees at the Hyderabad office have been asked to disperse and even consider looking for other jobs.
The advisory comes as PricewaterhouseCoopers fears that its accounting practices on various client accounts will be put under the scanner.
Even former employees of PwC are worried that they too may be called in for questioning by ICAI.
The nervousness comes even as PwC tries to reduce its liability in the Satyam fraud.
Sources at PricewaterhouseCoopers say that Satyam's accounts showed healthy balance till the 7th or 8th of each month. The balance then fell sharply at the end of the month.
The company explained this away as a normal business cycle where cash balances fell due to expenses between 8th & 28th of any month. Fresh receivables only came in after the 28th.
This was the argument pushed forth by Satyam's internal auditors that argument that PricewaterhouseCoopers bought month after month, allowing for Satyam's promoters to get away with a massive Rs 7000 crore fraud.
PricewaterhouseCoopers now hopes that it will get away with a slap on the wrist for negligence but it still remains unclear whether the auditors' role could have gone deeper than that.