Ex-BDO senior manager handed 20-year ban for falsifying documents

The audit watchdog has banned a former senior manager of accountancy giant BDO for 20 years after she was found to have been creating false documents.

Amanda Nightingale has entered a settlement agreement with the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) after she was found to have acted with “sustained dishonesty” in a large number of audits spanning five years.

Nightingale was a senior manager at BDO. Between 2015 and 2019, she was found to have created false documents, including audit evidence, deceived audit engagement partners, and falsified partner signatures.

As a result, she was hit with a number of sanctions by the FRC including being prohibited from undertaking accountancy work for 20 years, while being excluded from the ICAEW.

She also had to pay a contribution of £10,000 towards FRC’s executive counsel’s costs of the investigation, having taken into account her financial circumstances.

Actions risked ‘severely undermining confidence’ in BDO

Jamie Symington, deputy executive counsel of the FRC, said: “Nightingale’s conduct has risked severely undermining confidence in the audit profession and BDO.”

He added that “the failures in this case are wide ranging and extremely serious”.

The watchdog stated that BDO has implemented significant changes to its systems and controls since the misconduct which are being closely monitored by the FRC’s supervision function.

It was highlighted in the published statement that the FRC issued its proposed formal complaints against BDO and two former audit engagement partners on 2 August, 2024.

The proposed formal complaints allege misconduct against those parties following the FRC’s wider investigation into how Nightingale’s misconduct was able to occur and endure over such a long period.

A BDO spokesperson said: “Five years ago, our partners discovered that a senior employee in one of our regional offices was operating without proper authority, falsifying signatures on audit reports. On being confronted, the person left the firm before her impending dismissal for gross misconduct.”

“We promptly self-reported to our regulators and conducted an extensive and in-depth investigation that was delivered to the leadership team and our regulators in February 2021,” the spokesperson added.