>DOUGH
>https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/pwc-tax-scandal-goes-global-ex-ceo-steps-down-from-defence-board-20230515-p5d8d7.html
PwC tax scandal goes global, ex-CEO steps down from defence board
Some of PwC’s top global executives have flown to Australia and taken control of a tax scandal that is now affecting some of its biggest global clients.
PwC Global’s general counsel, Diana Weiss; the global head of its tax and legal operation, Carol Stubbings; and chief risk officer Coenraad Richardson, are now in Australia to oversee an independent review to rebuild the firm’s reputation.
The stakes are high. The Australian Financial Review reported that three of the largest global corporations, Apple, Google and Microsoft, are among those targeted with confidential information about the government’s plans to target tax avoidance.
PwC declined to comment about the trio, but the firm is expected to announce the leader of its independent review of the scandal this week.
“We now need to re-earn trust, which is why we have taken appropriate action, including the announcement that we will establish an independent review, in relation to our governance, accountability and culture,” a PwC spokesman said.
Senator Deborah O’Neill – who chairs the Corporations and Financial Services Committee that released a damning 148-page document this month revealing the scale of the firm’s profiteering from leaking confidential government tax plans to potential clients – said the cultural problems the scandal highlighted raised questions about the global firm’s entire business.
“You cannot provide a level of assurance as required by our financial markets, let alone by the government, if you are operating out of a model that is so clearly devoid of an ethical backbone,” O’Neill said.
Following recent resignations from other leadership roles in the wake of the scandal, acting chief executive Kristin Stubbins has appointed Rob Silverwood as head of its Financial Advisory business, while Tony O’Malley takes on a new role as chief risk and ethics leader.
Nicole Salimbini will lead a response plan for establishing appropriate governance and structures.
Meanwhile, the PwC boss who resigned last Monday in the wake of the tax avoidance scandal has also stood down from the board of a well-connected military contractor that is chaired by former defence minister Christopher Pyne.
Former PwC Australia chief executive Tom Seymour had his profile removed as a director of Australian Missile Corporation last week.
The privately owned company was set up as a potential strategic partner of the Defence Department in establishing an Australian-based Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise. It is fully owned by defence contractor NIOA, which is owned by its chief executive, Robert Nioa.
On Monday, Nioa said Seymour resigned last month after a board restructure.
“Mr Seymour was appointed to the advisory board of the Australian Missile Corporation – a NIOA Group company in June 2022 – before the AMC board and NIOA board became one under a company restructure earlier this year,” Nioa said.
The AMC website shows that no other board members have resigned, including former Australian soldier and Victoria Cross recipient Mark Donaldson.
Seymour led PwC’s tax operation when confidential information was widely shared within the firm and marketed to multinational clients. He confirmed he had received the emails but denied he was aware the information was from a breach of confidentiality agreement by PwC partner Peter Collins.
Collins received a two-year professional ban from the Tax Practitioners Board earlier this year in response to his breach of the confidentiality agreement.
>Vice Media, which once had a valuation of $5.7 billion, went woke and is now broke, is set to be acquired out of bankruptcy at a valuation of around $400 million by Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vice-media-nears-deal-for-400-million-sale-out-of-bankruptcy-64297d2
Vice Media Nears Deal for $400 Million Sale Out of Bankruptcy
The media business is in talks to sell itself to top lenders Fortress Investment and Soros Fund Management through a reorganization that would wipe out other investors
Vice Media is nearing a deal for senior lenders including Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management to acquire the troubled media company out of bankruptcy at a valuation of around $400 million, according to people familiar with the matter.
Nearly every Vice stockholder—including backers such as private-equity firm TPG Group, Sixth Street Partners and media mogul James Murdoch—would be wiped out under the proposed reorganization, the people familiar with the matter said. Outstanding debts held by TPG and Sixth Street would also be impaired as part of the plan, the people said. The Murdoch family is a major shareholder in Journal parent News Corp .
https://twitter.com/rothschildmd
Right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time.
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.
The Post published a transcript of a lengthy interview with Zelensky on Saturday. After a discussion of a Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces, the newspaper asked whether his military intelligence agency – the GUR – had “back-channel contact” with Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian private military company Wagner Group.
Citing recently leaked Pentagon documents, the Post explained to Zelensky that American spies noted a meeting between the president and GUR chief Kirill Budanov in February in which Budanov told him that he had learned of a Wagner plan to “destabilize Moldova,” but could counter this alleged plan by exposing his own “dealings” with Prigozhin, thus portraying the Wagner boss as “a traitor who has been working with Ukraine.”
Zelensky responded angrily, first asking who within his government had handed this document to the Post. Whoever it was, he said, was committing “treason,” which “is the most severe felony in our country.”
Despite being told that the document did not come from Kiev, but from Washington, Zelensky asked his interviewer to reveal “with which Ukrainian official did you talk?”
The Post has not yet published a story based on the document, and when informed that he was the first Ukrainian official the newspaper had spoken to, Zelensky urged his interviewer not to run the story, arguing that doing so would “demotivate Ukraine,” and accusing them of “playing games with me.”
“You are right now playing with, I think, things that aren’t good for our people,” he warned, asking the Post’s reporter “is your goal to help Russia?” When the reporter said that it was not, Zelensky countered “well, it looks different.”
By Sunday, however, the explosive exchange – during which Zelensky did not dispute that the meeting with Budanov had happened – was missing from the Post’s transcript. The entire 1,400-word back-and-forth about the document was removed, with no explanation given.
>>18848777
>Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage.
>ROMANIA
>https://twitter.com/rothschildmd
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12078013/Dem-linked-pollsters-tried-BURY-survey-showing-voters-OPPOSE-trans-procedures-kids.html
Dem-linked pollsters refuse to publish their own study showing Americans OPPOSE trans procedures on kids - and discuss how voters must be 'educated' and hatch plan to 'rebrand' puberty blockers in meeting about results
San Francisco group's poll shows Americans reject new wave gender ideology
But researchers says results won't be 'widely available' and aren't for sharing
Instead, the public needs to be 'educated' on the merits of trans drugs for kids