Five former executives of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) are set to sue professional services firm KPMG South Africa as well as KPMG International in a large civil law suit. The five are also considering criminal charges in terms of South Africa's anti-corruption laws.
All five are former leading SARS executives: deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay, executive Yolisa Pikie, spokesman Adrian Lackay, strategy head Peter Richer and high-risk investigations head Johann van Loggerenberg.
Lawyer Bernard Hotz of Werksmans Attorneys, who represents four of the five, said, "I hold instructions to institute appropriate proceedings against KPMG SA and KPMG International shortly." The lawyer for the fifth executive also confirmed an imminent suit.
"We are not aware of any legal proceedings having been commenced in connection with the work performed by KPMG South Africa in preparing the SARS report," said the auditor's spokesperson, Nqubeko Sibiya.
The suit is against a 2016 KPMG report into an alleged rogue unit at SARS, which the firm subsequently partly retracted because of the poor standard of work. Last month, KPMG returned the R23-million fee it earned from SARS for the report after it had retracted its conclusions and recommendations.
But the executives want KPMG to retract the entire report, which they believe has impugned their reputations and continues to do so. The five are likely to ask the court to find that the whole report must be withdrawn, especially as it has been used in new charges laid against two of them last week...