Office of Fair Trading acts on Lords' audit market findings
17 May 2011
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, chairman of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, today responded to the Office of Fair Trading’s announcement about next steps to tackle “competition problems” in the audit market
"In 2010 the Big Four – Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers – audited 99 of the FTSE100 companies. The Economic Affairs Committee’s recent inquiry into the audit market was extremely concerned about this oligopoly.
I am glad that the Office of Fair Trading responded to our concerns. I welcome their recognition that there are competition problems in the audit market that pass the statutory test for referral to the Competition Commission.
The OFT now intends to discuss potential remedies with interested bodies. We will follow the OFT’s progress with interest.
We hope that the interested bodies the OFT consults will include activist shareholders who expressed serious concerns about audit market concentration during our inquiry as well as the groups listed in the OFT’s statement today."