City law firm denies ties to KPMG Australia scandal
City-headquartered law firm Ashurst has denied its involvement in investigating allegations at KPMG Australia as the Big Four firms’ scandal fallout continues to heat up down under.
Ashurst reportedly carried out an investigation from June to August 2025 over allegations made by a whistleblower against an unnamed former executive, following the Big Four firm conducting its own internal inquiry and another by external law firm Allens.
KPMG had claimed the law firm was called in to investigate the allegations, which were made formally in May 2024, and had found “no wrongdoing”, according to The Australian Financial Review.
However, Ashurst partner Jane Harvey dismissed KPMG’s claims, telling a parliamentary inquiry in Australia on Friday that the law firm was never instructed to investigate the whistleblower’s claims.
“We were not engaged to undertake an investigation and we did not conduct one,” Harvey said.
The law firm’s global chief executive officer, Paul Jenkins, added that the firm had been brought in to investigate an employment claim in connection to the allegations but not the claims themselves.
Australian Senator Deborah O’Neill, chairing the inquiry, accused KPMG on Friday of throwing Ashurst and Allens “under the bus”.
This follows the Australian government and a number of clients ditching the Big Four firm for audit work until September this year, amid fallout from allegations that the firm mishandled client information.
As a result of the scandal, KPMG is set to be banned from bidding on any Australian government contracts until September 2026, as the country’s Department of Finance investigates the firm’s governance and ethical standards.
This comes after the resignation of KPMG Australia’s chief executive, Andrew Yates, and the national managing partner of audit and assurance, Julian McPherson, with immediate effect at the end of May.
Lendlease blasts KPMG’s behaviour
KPMG Australia has lost one of its largest clients, Australian property developer Lendlease, which said on 15 June it plans to drop KPMG as its auditor, ending a 68-year relationship that reportedly brought in about AUD $10m (£5.2m) in fees for the firm.
According to the whistleblower allegations, the Australian property company’s confidential board papers were used without permission to help win bids for audit work from the large bank Westpac and the property company Dexus.
During the parliamentary inquiry, Lendlease chair John Gillam called out the Big Four firms’ behaviour and said that sharing the company’s confidential documents was a “fundamental breach of trust”.
Ashurst’s transatlantic merger
The UK-based law firm in December last year agreed to merge with US law firm Perkins Coie, in the latest transatlantic merger move in the legal sector, which is expected to complete on July 1 2026.
The firm agreed a deal with Seattle-based Perkins Coie to become a $2.7bn law firm, following a week of speculation over the merger talks, and will be known as Ashurst Perkins Coie.
Ashurst was contacted for comment.