[THE INVESTOR] Deloitte Anjin, a local member of the global accounting and consulting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, is facing the largest number and costliest lawsuits among accounting firms operating in South Korea this fiscal year, data showed on Sept. 9.

As of March this year, Deloitte Anjin has been involved in 28 lawsuits worth 75.07 billion won (US$68.21 million) during the period. It is the biggest number of the 84 suits filed against 157 accounting firms, according to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service.
 
Since last year, the accounting firm has been embroiled a series of suits as it was tainted over its failure to uncover Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering’s erroneous financial statements which led to massive investor losses.

An uphill battle is expected for Deloitte Anjin this year again as National Pension Service has filed a 48.9 billion won compensation suit against DSME and the consulting firm in July. Another institutional investor Teachers Pension and Government Employees Pension Service also sued the two companies over the accounting and auditing fraud.

Shinhan Accounting Corporation has been sued for the second-largest amount of 26.95 billion won in 10 separate cases during the period, followed by Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, Earnst & Young Han Young and Samjong KPMG.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)