The leaders of a high-profile consultancy face a grilling from a powerful federal oversight committee after making an 11th-hour decision to withhold information from their interrogators.
KPMG, which has more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer-funded government contracts, is feeling the heat over an audit leak scandal and the treatment of a whistleblower, raising concerns about its governance and integrity frameworks.
Ahead of Friday's hearing, it told the committee it would not provide the requested documents linked to those matters because they were confidential, subject to professional privilege and could prejudice the "administration of justice".
"We appreciate that this is not the response the committee was seeking," chairman Martin Sheppard wrote in a letter tabled by Labor's Deborah O'Neill, the committee chair.
