PwC Australia is caught in a scandal after it has been revealed that in 2014 a partner working for the government broke a confidentiality agreement by leaking planned changes in the tax laws to prevent multinationals avoiding taxes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-23/pwc-in-the-firing-line-as-afp-gets-involved/102376954
As of writing
The finance department of the Australian government has ordered officials to consider confidentiality breaches when evaluating bids. The Australian financial review said this "Effectively banned the firm from winning new work" (I personally think that's a bit melodramatic)
I'll resolve this market yes if any of the following happen in 2023:
1: The federal government announces it will not award new contracts to PwC.
2: The federal government stops awarding new contracts to PwC.
I won't bet in this market.
Created on 29th May.
Related questions
PwC Australia sells division for 50p after tax leak scandal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66016270
"For the current financial year, the Australian government is committed to contracts with PwC worth A$255m, according to official data.
Since the scandal first emerged, major pension funds including AustralianSuper, as well as the country's central bank, have said they would not sign any new contracts with PwC."
Committed to contracts sounds like existing contracts and therefore not relevant to
"Effectively banned the firm from winning new work"
It seems that far from being "a bit melodramatic" the scope of the problem for PwC widened to others like pension funds and central bank and was such a problem for PwC, the government work arm was sold for a dollar.
If having distanced itself from PwC that business has been able to return to winning work then it isn't PwC winning it. I would suggest this could well be enough for a yes resolution? @Daniel_MC ?
@ChristopherRandles I've been a bit lazy in that I haven't been thinking about how to deal with the edge case that has emerged.
The people at PwC who would have been winning this work are now at Scyne and there is no one at PwC trying to win this work.
So I think the best thing to do in the spirit of the market is to update the criticia to PwC / Scyne.
Happy to discuss this before I do it.
@Daniel_MC I would suggest that previously PwC owned the arm doing the government work and now it has lost ownership of that arm for a mere 1 dollar. That seems a much worse outcome for PwC than merely not winning some new government work for a few months and then things getting back to normal.
So your suggested change seems somewhat perverse to me. This seems a much more extreme outcome for PwC rather than a borderline/definitional issue.
However it is your question and if you believe that it is the partners at the government arm that were taking vast majority of earnings from that work and not paying a significant percentage to other PwC partners then it might be sensible to take the view that by "PwC Australia" you really meant partners of PwC some of whom have transferred to the new Scyne business and treat it as you suggest.
