Melbourne accountant convicted for falsifying signatures on audit documents
A Melbourne accountant has been fined $20,000 and sentenced to a 70-hour community correction order for falsifying the signatures of registered company auditors.
Stephen Robert Allen, the sole director of K.H.N Holdings Pty Ltd trading as Alkemade & Associates, was sentenced following an ASIC investigation and was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court after being found guilty of making false statements to induce others.
Mr Allen was also convicted and fined $2,500 for making a statement knowing it to be false.
Mr Allen operated accounting business Alkemade & Associates and held accounting qualifications and memberships, but he has never been a registered company auditor and K.H.N Holdings Pty Ltd has never been an authorised audit company.
An ASIC investigation found Mr Allen falsified the signatures of registered company auditors on over 80 documents relating to audits of the financial accounts of 12 separate clients between 2015 and 2020.
Further, on 10 February 2021, Mr Allen falsified a document by purporting to be a registered company auditor and lodged that document to obtain consent from ASIC to resign as auditor of one of those audit clients.
Mr Allen was charged with making falsified documents under s83A(1) of the Crimes Act 1958 (VIC) and for lodging a document with ASIC containing a materially false or misleading statement contrary to s1308(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said this criminal outcome highlight’s ASIC’s focus on auditor misconduct to maintain trust and confidence in the audit community.
His Honour Judge Parrish noted that but for Mr Allen’s early guilty plea, he would have sentenced Mr Allen to 18 months' imprisonment.
The matter was prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions after an investigation and referral by ASIC.
