The imported boss of embattled accounting and financial services giant PwC Australia, Kevin Burrowes, has ever so discreetly extricated himself from official company director responsibilities in Australia, resigning from all local corporate entities of the firm.
While Burrowes remains managing partner and chief executive of PwC Australia, he no longer acts in any official role at the group that is governed by the rules and regulations of the Corporations Law, which is administered by corporate regulator ASIC.
This means he is not bound by any formal director’s duties, despite that he has recently signed on to stay running the Australian operations until 2026.
News of Burrowes’ exit from PwC corporate directorships comes as the firm, which is now in its second year of dealing with the consequences of its tax scandal, awaits the final release on Wednesday of the Richard Colbeck-chaired Senate inquiry into Management and Assurance of Integrity by Consulting Services.
The inquiry, which has been dominated by the work of Greens senator Barbara Pocock and
Labor senator Deb O’Neill has closely dissected the PwC crisis.
An indication as to the committee’s thinking comes from its two interim reports into the affair, which were respectively titled “PwC: A calculated breach of trust” and “PwC: The Cover-up Worsens the Crime”.
At the start of May PwC filed paperwork removing Burrowes as a director of three corporate vehicles comprising PricewaterhouseCoopers Nominees (NSW) Pty Ltd, PricewaterhouseCoopers Nominees (Victoria) Pty Ltd and PricewaterhouseCoopers Nominees (ACT) Pty Ltd. He had first become a director of these companies shortly after becoming CEO in 2023. He is no longer a director of any company in Australia.
Previous PwC managing partners Luke Sayers and Tom Seymour were directors of the three companies for eight and three years respectively.
“More recently, as part of broader changes to directorships, it was determined appropriate for other members of the firm’s management leadership team to hold these positions to ensure appropriate allocation of responsibilities,” a PwC Australia spokesman said.
Those executives who have taken over from Burrowes as directors of the various corporate vehicles include consulting boss Rohit Antao, CFO David Callaghan, chief people officer Chris Greenwood, financial advisory lead partner Rob Silverwood and chief transformation officer Tom Bowden.
A source at the firm stressed that Burrowes continued to have all of the responsibilities associated with senior management of a partnership and that he was not a shadow director of any PwC-owned companies.
Curious, indeed.
Law haw haw
The opportunistic UK-based class action law firm Pogust Goodhead, which is taking on BHP over the Mariana Dam collapse in Brazil in the world’s biggest class action, clearly sees Aussie corporates as rich prey.
It’s only been a couple months since its global managing partner Thomas Goodhead launched Downunder with former Norton Rose Fulbright’s Amie Crichton in charge.
But already the firm, which is backed by hedge fund Gramercy, is planning to file at least two to three matters against corporates in Australia this year.
Goodhead this week said his firm had something like 30 matters under consideration in Oz, with its fresh efforts here made possible after Labor in 2022 weakened the rules around class actions and third-party litigation funds.
Opposition legal affair spokeswoman Michaelia Cash has said the changes encouraged “predatory litigation funders”.
But back home in the UK the firm, which is chaired by co-founder Harris Pogust and routinely takes 50 per cent fees on class action wins, can’t seem to even get its own affairs in order and has drawn the attention of the UK companies regulator.
The firm is facing fines for failing to file its accounts for the 2022 year, which were due by the end of March and are now more than two months late.
This comes on the eve of the first directions hearing in the BHP matter in the UK (where the class action will be heard in October), with PG’s inability to keep filings up to date perhaps revealing a lack of attention to detail that its action against the world’s biggest miner in the world’s biggest class action might require. What a shambles.
Provocative posts
But back to PwC Australia for just for a moment.
What better day for the firm’s Melbourne-based executive’s Jim Christodouleas’s prolific use of various forms of social media to express his wide ranging views on matters business, political and social to hit the airways.
As the firm prepared for the Senate inquiry’s much anticipated final report, the historic pronouncements from Christodouleas, who leads the firm’s work in Australia when it comes to banking solutions and capability, only added to the internal workload.
Formidable Sky News journalist Caroline Marcus aired an exclusive report revealing provocative posts from Christodouleas about the conflict in Gaza since the October 7 terror attacks.
The PwC partner’s posts were described as anti-Semitic and offensive. No need to air them here.
A PwC Australia spokesman said the firm had “spoken to the individual to remind them that while they are free to express themselves, everyone should do so in a measured and respectful fashion”.
Christodouleas has now changed his account to “protected”, so only followers can read his thoughts.
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