Promontory Financial, after threatening to sue New York's Department of Financial Services, agreed to settle with the regulator over its actions in representing Standard Chartered Bank today. The firm will pay a $15 million fine and forgo consulting gigs with New York banks for six months.
Contrast that with the deals PwC and Deloitte got:
Those firms, unlike Promontory, settled their cases without the public threat of litigation. PwC paid $25 million and agreed to a two-year voluntary suspension from certain consulting arrangements. Deloitte paid $10 million and accepted a one-year abstention.
On the one hand, it might be out of character for a mega accounting firm to publicly threaten a regulator with litigation; however, you can't help but think that some people at PwC and Deloitte are looking at this and going, "Man, we shoulda done that."
You'll get 'em next time, guys.
[DealBook]
