KUALA LUMPUR: 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) has appointed UK-based Parker Randall International as its external auditor — its fourth since the troubled strategic development company’s inception in 2009.
In a statement yesterday, 1MDB said it submitted forms 11 and 52 to the Companies Commission of Malaysia on Tuesday, confirming the appointment of Parker Randall as its auditor.
Parker Randall replaces Deloitte Malaysia, which quit as auditor of 1MDB in July last year following a US Department of Justice (DoJ) complaint alleging an international scheme to siphon more than US$3.5 billion off the fund.
It was reported that Deloitte Malaysia, which notified 1MDB of its intention to resign as early as February 2016, had said the DoJ complaint contained information that, if known at the time of its audits of 1MDB’s 2013 and 2014 accounts, “would have impacted the financial statements and affected the audit reports”.
The professional services firm was earlier drawn into a dispute over a US$1.4 billion mismatch in dealings between 1MDB and an Abu Dhabi investment fund, International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC).
IPIC in 2015 said it had never received the US$1.4 billion that 1MDB said had been paid out.
1MDB said in September 2015 that Deloitte Malaysia had made “specific and detailed enquiries” about these payments to IPIC before signing off on the fund’s accounts and thus, it stood by its audited financial accounts.
However, after Deloitte Malaysia’s resignation as its auditor in July last year, 1MDB said that its 2013 and 2014 audited financial statements should no longer be relied on.
To recap, 1MDB had earlier sacked two external auditors, first Ernst & Young (EY), followed by KPMG. EY was terminated before the auditor completed the audit of 1MDB’s accounts for the financial year ended March 31, 2010 (FY10).
KPMG, which took over in September 2010, was alleged to have had to rush the auditing job. The former auditor signed off the FY10 accounts, one month after it was appointed. However, KPMG was dismissed in December 2013 after it refused to sign off on the accounts without details of investments worth US$2.32 billion.