This Washington Post article reports that at least 20 former partners KPMG LLP — including some who were members of its senior management team — have been informed by the Justice Department that they are targets of the criminal investigation into their role in selling tax shelters over the past decade. Here are the previous posts on the ongoing sagas involving KPMG and other auditors.
As noted in this prior post, the DOJ has been turning up the heat for some time on KPMG, and it is still unclear in my mind whether the firm can survive or will fall into the same trap that enveloped Arthur Andersen. Although it would seem unlikely that the DOJ would pursue an indictment of KPMG after its Arthur Andersen fiasco, experience tells me that this bunch does not always make rational decisions in such matters. As Professor Ribstein noted awhile back, it would be ironic if a truly good criminal case against KPMG (still not established yet) would be undermined by the Justice Department’s dubious handling of the prior case against Andersen.