The PwC Australia Tax Leak Scandal:

investigating failures of strategic business leadership in business ethics, governance, transparency and Social Responsibility

TASKS: the focus of this final Assessment Task is on improving your investigation and analysis and skills to go deeper than/beyond just describing 'what happened, when, and who did it' in the tax leak scandal at PwC Australia.

Focus on the causes and consequences (impacts) of the failures in strategic leadership.

1. Identify what strategic leadership measures in PwC Australia, including safeguardsand mandated internal controls to maintain compliance with contractual obligations and standards should have been taken to prevent the breach of trustand conflict of interest between advising the Australian Tax Office on new laws and regulations to reduce multinational corporations avoiding tax - and simultaneously advising these same multinational corporations on ways to anticipate and get around these proposed new ATO laws and regulations.

2. Investigate and summarise the ethical failures and reputational damage admitted by Acting CEO Christin Stubbins and new CEO Keven Burrowes.

3. Identify any other crucial failures of strategic leadership in PwC to apply and maintain ethical principles, and safeguard against the ethical threats to independence of action of that have been made public by the tax leak scandal, including:

• Corruption?
• Breaches of confidentiality - failure to maintain confidentiality with government departments and agencies?
• Failure to uphold professional standards?
• Failure to comply with government rules and requirements for consultants?
• Integrity failures?
• Governance failures?
• Transparency failures?
• Social Responsibility failures?

4. Evaluatethe success or otherwise of the previous CEO (who resigned) and Acting CEO Christin Stubbins' initial strategy to 'ringfence' (put a protective barrier around) and confine the scope of police, government and journalists enquiries into who was involved in the tax leak scandal. Is this 'ringfence strategy' going to succeed in minimising the extent of the scandal - and enable PwC to continue bidding for multi-million $ contracts with Australian Government departments including the Reserve Bank and the Australian Federal Police (who are now investigating PwC)?

An activity that meets the first four criteria above can be classified as a project, and therefore falls within the scope of project management. Whether an activity is classified as a project is important, as projects should be manage using project management techniques.

Common example of projects include:

1. Producing a new product, service, or object
2. Changing the structure of an organisation
3. Developing or modifying a new information system
4. Implementing a new procedure or process

5. Assess the latest strategy by PwC's global leadership and newly appointed CEO Kevin Burrowes to 'rescue' the reputation and ongoing financial viability of its PwC Australian division: sell off the government consultancy arm - worth $250+ million annually before the scandal broke - for $1 to Allegra, then build a new entity called 'Bell' and transfer 1000+ PwC staff involved in government consultancy projects to it.

1. Do you agree with Senator Barbara Pockock that this is just a 'phoenix' strategy i.e. close down a business after it gets a bad name (or big debts), then reopen under a new name and new ABN?
2. Is it likely to be a successful leadership strategy that wins back the confidence of the Australian Government and/or the NSW Government, in your judgment?