E&Y probe after withdrawal of China NPL report – Richard McGregor and Barney Jopson

From the Financial Times (link)

Paul Ostling, global chief operating officer of Ernst & Young, has ordered an internal inquiry into the accountancy firm’s publication of a controversial report on China’s non-performing loans that it was forced to withdraw.

E&Y retracted the report, saying its estimate of bad debts for the country’s big four state banks “cannot be supported and … is factually erroneous”.

The announcement came days after the study was attacked by the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, as “ridiculous and barely understandable” and at odds with the firm’s own auditing of Chinese banks.