September 4, 2026 — 9:59amThe corporate regulator has launched a sweeping review of whistleblower complaints in all four of the major global consulting firms, as the fallout from KPMG’s auditing scandal widens.The Australian Securities and Investments Commission told an inquiry on Friday it had commenced surveillance of audit complaints dating to July 2023 and that the review had uncovered 551 complaints about the big four audit firms.“A company has to be able to make itself vulnerable to its auditor,” ASIC chair Sarah Court told an earlier parliamentary hearing.Alex EllinghausenThe review is focused on industry giants KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PwC. ASIC said it expected to provide an update on the probe before the end of the year.“Just to be clear about what we’ve asked for, this includes whether the firms have received complaints relating to misconduct by registered company auditors, such as the misuse or sharing of confidential information,” ASIC chair Sarah Court told the public hearing into the KPMG whistleblower scandal.“I don’t want to suggest that there are 550 serious whistleblower issues. We don’t know, and there’s a lot of work for us clearly to be looking through those complaints,” she said.Greens senator Barbara Pocock said the figure of more than 500 internal complaints was “a very large number, and it is shocking to me.”“They may all be completely resolved, (but) I doubt it,” she said.Earlier, ASIC told Friday’s hearing it was investigating documents that KPMG had lodged with the regulator last year to determine if it contained any false or misleading statements.“Initial inquiries are focused on the basis for statements made in that report, including the statement that there were no whistleblower complaints related to audit quality,” ASIC said in a submission on Friday to a parliamentary hearing into the KPMG whistleblower scandal.At a previous hearing, Court said ASIC’s powers in relation to investigating wrongdoing were limited by the fact that KPMG operates as a partnership, but the regulator appears to now be using the corporate entities associated with the firm to investigate its botched handling of the scandal over two years.“We can only investigate individual registered company auditors within the partnership, and only then in relation to their conduct of an audit,” Court told a public hearing into the scandal in June. Ahead of Court’s appearance, the commission confirmed that it was “conducting an assessment of the corporate entities in the KPMG corporate group to identify any director conduct that may require further regulatory consideration”.Directors of the KPMG corporate entity that lodged the report with ASIC include then chairman Martin Sheppard, former chief executive Andrew Yates, Carmel Mortell, who remains its deputy chair and Kim Lawry, who has resigned.Lawry is negotiating her exit after an investigation that found screenshots on her phone of confidential Lendlease board documents. She told a parliamentary inquiry that she had nothing to gain by disclosing client information, and that she did not recall having a screenshot of Lendlease papers on her phone.The board also included independent directors Patty Akopiantz, who has resigned, along with former NSW premier Mike Baird, who has also resigned, and Jane Hemstritch, who is expected to step down this year.The hearing comes one day after former KPMG chief operating officer Eileen Hoggett initiated legal action to sue the firm after her abrupt dismissal for allegedly keeping confidential client documents in her work locker.The NSW Supreme Court confirmed that a summons has been lodged in her name against a KPMG entity. The first hearing is scheduled for September 23.New CEO John Sams sacked her immediately over the issue, after Hoggett had previously denied the documents were in the locker.Hoggett had already resigned over the scandal but she had yet to leave the firm. She would have left with a significant retirement benefit – expected to exceed a million dollars – if that had proceeded.Last month, ASIC confirmed its KPMG investigation now includes companies controlled by the accounting and consulting giant, and potentially these companies’ directors who have resigned over the growing scandal.KPMG has been under siege after admitting that some of its staff accessed confidential information from corporate clients to win business, a serious breach of the trust in the world of auditing that is essential to the integrity of financial markets.According to Bloomberg, Australia’s four biggest audit and consulting firms posted combined annual revenue of about $9.6 billion, according to the most recently disclosed figures from these firms.Separately, ASIC said it was assessing 24 KPMG entities “to determine whether it may be relevant to KPMG’s current investigations”. It identified KPMG Australia Pty Ltd and KPMG Australia Services Pty Ltd as entities that may be “relevant” to its investigation.“We will consider the conduct of directors of those entities where the circumstances of the relevant entity indicate that such consideration is required. At this stage, that assessment is ongoing,” ASIC said last month.The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.Colin Kruger is a senior business reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners