You do not get credit for all the times you drive sober.

CRS Report: R48887. Publication Date: 03/26/2026 – U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, have sparked a wide-reaching regional conflict, with ongoing U.S. and Israeli air operations in Iran and Iranian retaliatory strikes on a range of targets in a number of countries and threats and attacks that have largely halted maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. In announcing the onset of U.S. strikes, President Donald J.

How Thomson Reuters Powers ICE and Palantir

404 Media: “Thomson Reuters, the media company which is also a data broker, has long provided underlying personal data for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tools, according to documents obtained by 404 Media and sources. There are also indications its data is now part of the Palantir system ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target. 

The findings draw a clearer line between Thomson Reuters’ data business—which can involve selling names, addresses, car registration information, Social Security numbers, and details on someone’s ethnicity under the brand name CLEAR—and the specific tools ICE is ingesting the data into. The news also comes after Thomson Reuters employees sent leadership a signed letter expressing their unease with the company’s ICE and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contracts, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported last month.

 “If these allegations are true, they cut directly against Thomson Reuters’ claims that its products and services are limited to fighting serious crime and are not facilitating deportations,” Emma Pullman, head of shareholder engagement and responsible investment for the B.C. General Employees’ Union (BCGEU), told 404 Media. BCGEU is a minority shareholder in Thomson Reuters and has recently engaged the company concerning its work with ICE, BCGEU said…”

The elusive Czech at the centre of European business

Daniel Kretinsky still believes in the old continent—but fears its lack of pragmatism

Even by his own standards, the past 12 months have been unusually active for Daniel Kretinsky. Last February the Czech billionaire took Metro, a big German wholesaler, private. In April he bought International Distributions Services (ids), the parent company of Britain’s Royal Mail. In November he became a major shareholder in TotalEnergies, a French oil giant. And on January 26th he launched a takeover offer for Fnac Darty, a French electronics retailer.

The 50-year-old tycoon, often referred to as the “Czech sphinx”, shies away from the limelight. Yet over the past few years he has quietly become one of the continent’s most influential businessmen, amassing a fortune of around $10bn in the process. His approach, which he describes in an interview with The Economist, has been to focus not on flashy new industries but those that serve consumers’ essential needs. Although he still believes in Europe’s potential, he fears a lack of pragmatism will drag it down.

Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations in Shift to Immigration

ProPublica: “In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace. The cases included an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse; probes of fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a national union was accused of embezzlement; and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating investors. 

In total, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases, according to an analysis by ProPublica. The bulk of these cases, which were closed without prosecution and known as declinations, had been referred to the DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations that believed a federal crime may have been committed. 

The DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for any number of reasons, including insufficient evidence or because a case is not a priority for enforcement. But the number of declinations under Bondi marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis, which examined two decades of DOJ data, including the first six months of Trump’s second term. 

 determined the increase is not the result of inheriting a larger caseload or more referrals from law enforcement. In February 2025 alone, which included the first weeks of Bondi’s tenure, nearly 11,000 cases were declined, the most in a month since at least 2004. The previous high was just over 6,500 cases in September 2019, during Trump’s first administration…”

See also The New York Times Editorial Board (Gift Article): The People Trump Pardoned Are on a Crime Spree. Trump “has created a veritable pardon industry, in which people with White House connections accept payments from wealthy convicts 

 Worst of all, Mr. Trump granted clemency on the first day of his second term to everyone who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 … The results have been disastrous. At least 12 of the pardoned rioters have since been charged with other serious crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and charges related to a vicious dog attack. The outcome was predictable.”

What the client leaks allegations mean for KPMG Australia

Kerr Neilson’s family office fronts the foundation 

There’s a neat little proxy for the once-mighty fundie’s investing in retirement. 

Mark Di Stefano Apr 1, 2026

Few carry the weighty moniker “legendary investor” in this masthead. Kerr Neilson got it again this week, for his financial backing of Sava Mihic’s hedge fund Adamantos.

The Serbian-born quant had been operating the fund in “stealth mode” within Platinum Asset Management. But it was now spun out (capitalised with $50 million in seed funding from Neilson) and taking up office space with Argyle Funds Management.

Kerr Neilson has been plenty busy. Steven Siewert

Argyle is Neilson’s family office. As this column hinted at last year, it had been doing well enough, in Neilson’s estimation, that he had sounded out external money to invest.

It seems to have been put on ice. Neilson tells us he’s focused on his own money (in Argyle) and because Mihic is doing so well (14 per cent compounding annually), there’s more than enough activity at the Macquarie Street office.

The other leg in the legend’s interests is his philanthropic activities. His Neilson Foundation has $300 million in assets, and his adult daughters Paris and Beau sit on its gifting committee. But the contact for the foundation’s trustee is Aileen Chamberlain, financial controller for ... Argyle Funds Management.

Neat little set-up. There’s no point in replicating overheads between the charity and family office. But it goes further. Neilson says Argyle runs two funds, one for the family office and the other are the invested assets for the foundation.

He and a handful of staff come up with investment ideas, which are then “mirrored” across both. And because his foundation itemises its assets annually, there’s a window into Neilson’s stock picks for his family office.

According to its annual reports, the foundation had $23.6 million in unrealised gains on its investments for 2025 (following $11 million in losses the year before). There are several dozen equity positions, with Amazon, Advanced Micro Devices, Thales, and Daikin Industries all getting added to the foundation’s coffers, and seemingly, his family office.

There’s plenty of intrigue about how the nation’s wealthy run their family offices. Keeping track of their investments is nigh on impossible. At least Neilson has a neat proxy for his.

Neilson’s family office doesn’t appear to be slugging the foundation fees for their services. If it is, it’s buried out of view in the accounts. Unlike someone else he knows.

Ex-wife’s Judith Neilson Foundation paid $245,400 to JNFO Pty Ltd (her family office) for some salaries for their shared key management personnel.

Something you’d think would be a gift going back the other way.

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Mark Di Stefano is Rear Window columnist, based in the Sydney newsroom. He previously worked at BuzzFeed, the Financial Times and The Information before joining the Financial Review as a media and tech correspondent.Connect with Mark on Twitter. Email Mark at mark.distefano@afr.

What the client leaks allegations mean for KPMG Australia 

The extraordinary allegations under privilege puts KPMG under the gun and raises questions about whistleblower protection. Plus: a new mining advisory emerges. 

Edmund Tadros Apr 1, 2026

This week: A senator uses parliamentary privilege to raise allegations that KPMG internally leaked confidential client information to win work. The firm says it has investigated the matter and denies wrongdoing, which, as defences go, has a familiar ring. Elsewhere, big four reforms stall, FTI goes shopping at Deloitte, PwC and EY, and we roll our eyes as Bain thinks up “the agent factory”.

In this week’s issue:

• KPMG’s client leaks trouble raises all sorts of questions, in public
• Professional moves: Senior mining experts poached from the big four for a new venture
• AI and the professions: AI might help Australia become a healthcare start-up hub
• #REF!: Behold, the industrial factory process (of software)

Parliament investigates KPMG (client) leaks allegations

Labor senator Deborah O’Neill raised the KPMG allegations in the Senate. Dominic Lorrimer

A little after 9pm on Tuesday, March 24, Labor senator Deborah O’Neill got up in the Senate to make a 10-minute speech.

Its content was extraordinary. Quoting an unnamed former KPMG Australia executive, O’Neill accused the firm of repeatedly misusing confidential client information to win work.

The claims, raised under parliamentary privilege, alleged the firm misused board papers from client Lendlease to win external audit work for Westpac and Dexus. Inside information was also allegedly used to win external audit contracts for Macquarie Group and Westpac.

She told parliament she had “taken great care to verify, via documentation, the authenticity of the matters I am putting on record here in the Senate of the Australian Parliament tonight”, but did not provide details of this evidence.

O’Neill said the firm failed to act on the unnamed whistleblower’s detailed May 2024 complaint, which also included claims about AI-related exam cheating.

KPMG denied wrongdoing when asked about the claims last Wednesday (March 25). The firm said the claims had been both repeatedly investigated and “included new and unsubstantiated allegations”.

The firm also said the complainant had failed on 20 occasions to provide further evidence to back up the allegations.

Last Thursday (March 26), the powerful parliamentary committee chaired by O’Neill held a private meeting with the whistleblower. The joint committee on corporations and financial services is now assessing the evidence and has invited other parties to come forward.

The move raises the possibility that KPMG Australia partners and staff may be called to testify before parliament.

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Whistleblower allegations spark parliamentary probe into KPMG Australia

Troubling timeline

KPMG has said its investigation remains open, as does the offer for the whistleblower to provide evidence. The firm would not say if it would hand over the results of its internal investigations and its two external legal investigations to the committee.

It refused to provide details about which allegations it had investigated or if it offered the whistleblower legal protections.

I’ve been told by a source not authorised to speak about internal firm matters that the firm has asked at least some individuals related to the allegations to stop talking to the whistleblower.

It all adds up to a serious – and growing – problem for the firm.

Rear Window opined that KPMG Australia chief executive Andrew Yates could use the claims as an “opportunity to learn” how to walk the talk on ethical standards.

The matter recalls the PwC tax leaks episode, which blew up into a scandal partly because it was never investigated properly in the first place.

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Stalled whistleblower protections

The allegations highlight that whistleblower protection laws urgently need to be overhauled.

That’s the view of Kieran Pender, the associate legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre.

Pender, a veteran of helping whistleblowers navigate legal issues, says the government is obliged, under the Corporations Act, to review whistleblower protections but has yet to even issue a consultation paper.

As mentioned, a particular issue in the KPMG case is the lack of clarity about whether whistleblowers at the big four partnerships are covered by existing laws.

“Whistleblower protections urgently need to be reformed,” Pender says.

“Some Australian whistleblowers cannot raise concerns safely because they don’t have strong legal protections due to gaps in private sector whistleblower laws.

“Those gaps are particularly acute in the accounting, auditing and consulting sector, as Treasury identified in its 2024 consultation. Whoever they work for, Australian whistleblowers should be able to speak up about wrongdoing safely, lawfully and without fear of reprisal.”

Stalled big four reforms

On the issue of stalled reforms, Treasury has now been sitting on the results of its consultation into auditing and consulting governance for almost two years.

The consultation, which closed in mid-2024, was triggered by the PwC tax leaks scandal and followed a parliamentary inquiry that made 40 recommendations to reform the sector. Details of the 36 submissions and 16 private forums are contained in a ministerial summary, released under freedom of information laws.

Treasury was told the big four accounting firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC operate in a regulatory grey area with gaps in how the partnerships are policed, and the current oversight of audit quality is inadequate.

Of note is that there was general agreement among the dozens of submissions that partnerships should fall under existing corporate whistleblower protections.

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Professional moves

The latest professional services promotions, moves and profiles.

Steve Dyson is a new senior managing director at FTI Consulting. He is part of a new mining advisory team at the firm. Dan Peled

FTI Consulting has poached senior mining experts from three of the big four consulting firms to anchor its new mining advisory division.

The team comprises former Deloitte Australia global mining operations lead Steve Dyson, former PwC Australia global mining and metals lead Franz Wentzel, and former EY Australia global mining productivity lead James Chapman.

The group aims to recruit two more partners and about 20 staff, Brisbane-based Dyson says.

“So probably by the end of year one, we ideally want to be around about 20 people, maybe 25 people. And then by year four, we probably want to be about 50, 60 people,” he says.

“We expect to get bigger than that, but we’re not looking to become another big four or [a] behemoth in the space. We’re looking to make sure we’re doing the real top end of town, really complex programs of work where you need the expertise and senior people to influence the outcomes.”

Dyson says the team will help clients reduce costs and improve profitability.

“We want to be in and around some of those larger [mining] deals which are happening, but primarily focused around getting the operations efficient, getting the operating model a bit more leaner, so they can have a bit more sustainability and profit.”

Their ideal client is one that can handle the truth.

“I think the one-line pitch to the clients is that we are completely independent in terms of what we’re looking at, and we’re going to give you our honest opinion, not necessarily the opinion and viewpoint that you or your board might want to hear,” Dyson says. “So it’s certainly going to be a new perspective, fairly hard hitting from our side.”

In other moves:

• Peter de Cure has been reappointed as the Tax Practitioners Board chairman until May 2029.
• KPMG partner David Bradbury has been appointed the part-time chairman of the Board of Taxation, a government advisory body.
• KPMG director Todd Burton has joined EY-Parthenon as a deals technology partner.
• GHD has purchased 10-person New Zealand-based transport consultancy RoadLab.
  Consulting firm Baringa has hired Mayur Bhaskar, a former Accenture managing director and utilities industry leader for Australia & New Zealand, into its energy practice.
• William Buck has promoted Zi Liu to partner (audit and assurance) and Berrin Daricili to partner (research and development) in the firm’s Melbourne office.
• HLB Mann Judd won the Best Accounting & Consulting Firm category (for firms with $100 to $300 million in revenue) at this year’s Client Choice Awards, while RSM won for firms with more than $300 million in revenue. RSM also won the Best Provider of ESG Services: Accounting & Consulting Services award and the overall Best Professional Services Firm award for firms of its size.

Latest stories

• KPMG plans to cut hundreds of jobs in UK auditing division
• Speedboats v cargo ships: AI engineers are shaking up consulting
• Expats fleeing Middle East could arrive home to a tax problem
• Luke Sayers’ wife accuses the AFL of colluding to clear his name

Consulting clients: Accenture, PwC, McKinsey

• Accenture will work with Australia Post on a national audit of mobile coverage in up to 77 locations around the country.
• Apple has brought in PwC to rectify an internal technology systems blunder that affected the pay and leave entitlements of thousands of employees.
• The Westpac board and McKinsey are overseeing the progress of dozens of initiatives linked to Westpac’s $3.5 billion technology project known as Unite.

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AI and the professions

How generative AI is shaping professional services.

Tim Doyle, co-founder and CEO of Eucalyptus, says regulation needs to meet citizens where they are online. Oscar Colman

On Monday afternoon, I moderated a punchy panel at The Australian Financial Review Healthcare Summit with an all-star panel of experts, including Quantium Health chief executive Brian Hartzer, Monash University DNA Screen co-lead Jane Tiller, Eucalyptus co-founder and chief executive Tim Doyle and CSIRO Australian e-Health Research Centre research director David Hansen.

Doyle said artificial intelligence is making it much easier to expand quickly overseas, potentially positioning Australia as a hub for successful healthcare start-ups like Eucalyptus, which was sold to New York-listed obesity drug giant Hims & Hers Health for $1.6 billion.

Pending regulatory approval, Doyle’s new global role will involve entering new markets. Eucalyptus currently uses two AI tools: Lorikeet for customer service agents and Amigo AI to support customers using the diet medicines.

While the high cost of Lorikeet means the company is only “marginally ahead two years in”, Doyle expects savings to accelerate alongside customer growth.

“We have customer support agents in Australia, Manila and South Africa. We’ve probably been able to 2x the patient base, so incrementally 100,000 patients, without growing the size of that team,” Doyle said after the panel. “Also, the AI token cost is going down so fast that it will really scale.”

During the panel, Tiller told the crowd she is lobbying the federal government to fund broader DNA testing of high-risk diseases, while Hansen explained the importance of data standards to ensure health software systems can talk to each other.

Hartzer said AI has proven to be really good at “crunching lots of data and recognising patterns and serving them up to a clinician to make a judgment.”

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#REF!

A regular look at the words and phrases professionals love to use, and what they’re really saying.

The agent factory

Use: “Scaling AI across the enterprise demands more than upgrading data science teams or bolting AI onto existing IT capabilities. It requires what we call an agent factory – a repeatable, industrial process for building, testing, deploying, and governing AI agents.” From a Bain article titled “The AI Enterprise: Code Red”.

Meaning: A process to create AI agents.

What it probably means: A process to create AI agents.

The alternative: This uses unnecessary terms (industrial, repeatable, factory) to make software development sound more appealing to non-techy executives. It also assumes everyone knows that an AI agent is a piece of software designed to carry out tasks with minimal supervision. In the end, “the agent factory” is really referring to a form of software development. “The AI agent development process” is more accurate, but not as fancy-sounding.

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Cheers,

Ed.

Connect: edmundtadros@afr.com.au and LinkedIn.

Find out the inside scoop about Accenture, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC and McKinsey. Sign up to our weekly Professional Life newsletter.

Edmund Tadros leads our coverage of the professional services sector. He is based in our Sydney newsroom.Email Edmund at edmundtadros@afr.com.