The accounting firm Deloitte audited Bankia before it went public, and now Deloitte is under investigation after a report from the Institute of Accounting and Auditing (the Spanish abbreviation is ICAC) accused the firm of not acting independently and exposed a conflict of interest that could lose Deloitte its business license.
Deloitte audited the accounts of all the savings banks that were nationalized to make Bankia, and during the 2008-2012 period it billed them 67.22 million euros. It is notable that after the crisis that many of them endured, only Bankia has severed its relationship with Deloitte.
It is a good thing that the ICAC is demanding excellence from accounting firms, because increased regulation and oversight in the financial sector doesn't mean much if we don't make the banks do their jobs well.
