The auditing company continues under the new name Pro Revisio, the tax consultants continue to operate under the name TPA.
As has been the practice time and again in the past after various accounting scandals, the auditing and tax consultancy TPA is now completely separating the auditing division in Austria, also as a brand.
The reason was the fraud scandal at the commercial bank Mattersburg. TPA was an auditor there. Lawsuits have been brought against them, questions of liability are in the room. The examiners see themselves as victims, but the brand is tattered.
As was emphasized on Friday, tax consulting and auditing were already two separate independent companies in the TPA network in Austria, each with their own partners as owners. Now there will also be the trademark separation in a few weeks, probably in December. As a result, a line will also be drawn spatially.
The previous “TPA Wirtschaftsprüfung GmbH” in Austria will leave the joint international brand umbrella of TPA by the end of 2020 at the latest and adopt its own name, the companies announced on Friday. The auditing company will continue to operate under the new name “Pro Revisio Wirtschaftsprüfung und Steuerberatung GmbH” with branches in Vienna and Graz.
The auditors are also moving out of the previous joint Austrian company headquarters in Vienna at the main train station. 35 people are employed in the auditing department.
The name of the auditors will change, the company register number will remain the same. In this respect, it is not about questions of legal succession, it said today.
The tax consultancy with around 700 employees continues to operate under the name “TPA Steuerberatung GmbH”. The brand name has existed for 40 years.
Commercial Bank Mattersburg
Only recently, the trustee of Commerzialbank Mattersburg, which went bankrupt after a huge balance sheet fraud scandal, sued its long-standing bank auditor TPA Wirtschaftsprüfung GmbH for damages (20 million euros). His argument: The annual financial statements should not have been confirmed, the auditors were accused of a lack of care. TPA denies having made mistakes, sees itself as the victim of the malversations.
If it turns out in investigations that the auditors – who had not noticed the manipulation of the balance sheet in the bank – intentionally made mistakes in their attestations, this could lead to bankruptcy, the “Presse” reported last week. Because then the upper limit of liability would no longer apply and the insurance could hold itself harmless. The company countered this today: “There is no risk of bankruptcy.”
