NEW YORK, May 10, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- PricewaterhouseCoopers today issued the following statement in response to sanction announced in Japan against ChuoAoyama PricewaterhouseCoopers.
PricewaterhouseCoopers regrets the actions of the former ChuoAoyama partners in connection with the Kanebo fraud and will respect fully the requirements and the intent of the order by the Financial Services Agency.
ChuoAoyama is committed to its previously announced reform plan. PricewaterhouseCoopers will continue to assist ChuoAoyama in the implementation of its programme to improve audit quality and will assist ChuoAoyama in managing through this difficult period.
In addition:
-- A permanent new and independent audit firm is being
created in Japan that will be a member of the
PricewaterhouseCoopers global network.
-- This new member firm will operate under a new management
and governance structure, and will be of a sufficiently
large scale to serve its clients. It will adopt
international best practices in accounting and auditing to
create a new distinctive firm that will meet high standards
of audit quality.
-- During its development, the new firm will have a high level
of oversight by PwC.
PricewaterhouseCoopers expects to be able to provide additional details with respect to this new firm within the next week.
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