AUSTRALIA
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Accountants to Pay $97 Million to Settle Case: The international accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick said it agreed to pay the state of Victoria over a court case involving the collapse of a merchant bank whose accounts it audited. The settlement is the biggest reported payment in an audit negligence case in Australia’s legal history. Tricontinental Group, then owned by State Bank of Victoria, collapsed in 1990 with $1.85 billion in debt.
