EY admits accountants in the Netherlands cheated in exams

Accountancy group EY has confirmed that some of its staff in the Netherlands have cheated in their exams, but has declined to say how many because the investigation is still underway.

EY is the latest of the big six accountants operating in the Netherlands to state publicly that its staff had been cheating in the compulsory exams that all accountants have to take.

“The preliminary finding show that violations of academic integrity occurred,” according to EY’s latest transparency report. “This concerns the sharing of answers from e-learnings… and the failure to report possible violations regarding shared answers.”

The exam fraud scandal erupted in 2022 when a whistleblower went public with allegations of cheating at KPMG. Shortly afterwards the company then confirmed at least 500 workers at KPMG in the Netherlands had cheated during their compulsory exams.

The scandal led financial regulator AFM to order all the big accountancy firms to carry out an internal investigation into possible cheating. In October 2023, Deloitte Nederland said some of its workers too had been swapping answers. 

This October, PwC said it too had evidence of cheating, but that the investigation is ongoing. Mazars and BDO are also investigating the situation at their practices but have not yet said anything official about their findings. 

In April KPMG Nederland was fined $25 million by the US regulator PCAOB for widespread cheating during compulsory exams and misleading regulators in the US and in the Netherlands.