Structural risks
These risks apply to every Deloitte product. They are legal obligations and corporate
practices that individual products cannot override. A subsidiary cannot opt out of an
FTC consent decree. A company cannot selectively ignore its home country's intelligence
law for one product. These risks set a grade floor of
D — no Deloitte product
can score better than this, regardless of its own privacy settings.
critical
SEC fined Deloitte China $20M for basic audit failures
2022-09-29
SEC charged Deloitte China with failing to comply with fundamental US auditing requirements. Audit failures included asking clients to conduct their own audit work. Agreed to pay $20M penalty.
critical
FRC fined Deloitte £15M for Autonomy audit failures
2020-09-17
FRC found "serious and serial failures" in Deloitte's auditing of Autonomy before HP acquired it for $11B. HP later wrote down $8.8B. Deloitte failed to challenge false or misleading accounting.
high
PCAOB fined Deloitte units for widespread exam cheating
2025-06-01
PCAOB sanctioned Deloitte in Indonesia, Philippines, and Netherlands for widespread answer sharing among partners and personnel on mandatory training tests. Hundreds cheated over 5 years (2018-2022), including senior leaders.
high
Australia: used AI to fabricate citations in $440K government report
2025-01-01
Deloitte used GPT-4o to produce a 237-page government welfare review but failed to detect fabricated academic citations and invented court references. Discovered by University of Sydney researcher. Deloitte refunded ~$97K of $440K contract. Responsible partner "retired." Deloitte had not disclosed AI use.