[25] PwC Consulting leadership continued to fluff financials by expanding across-the-board pay cuts, terminating its variable compensation program, and furthering deep layoffs, all rare actions in the industry.

[27] The firm's CEO, Greg Brenneman described the unusual name as "a real word, concise, recognizable, global and the right fit for a company that works hard to deliver results.

[93][94] PwC developed a ColourBrave Charity Committee, made up of employees from across the organisation, as part of its commitment to continue to build an inclusive culture and address racial disparity.

The "shadow culture" prioritizes loyalty to superiors, unquestioning acceptance of the status quo, and a mentality of revenue "growth at all costs", even to the point of rulebreaking.

[116][117][118][119][120] In 1989, the United States Supreme Court held that Price Waterhouse must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the decision regarding Ann Hopkins's employment would have been the same if sex discrimination had not occurred.

She eventually resigned and sued the company for occupational sexism, arguing that her lack of promotion came after pressure to walk, talk, dress, and act more "femininely.

[137] In 2007, India's accounting standards agency ICAI found partners of PwC guilty of professional negligence in under-providing for nonperforming assets of the now-defunct Global Trust Bank.

"[152] In 2015, PwC India said they were disappointed with court judgement of the case saying, "As we have said many times, there has never been any evidence presented that either of our former partners S Gopalakrishnan or Srinivas Talluri were involved in or were aware of the management-led fraud at Satyam.

[155] PwC, which provides consulting service to the Kerala government's Department of Information Technology[156][157] and its Space Park project,[158] has been criticised for appointing Ms. Swapana Suresh, who is accused in a case of smuggling gold in a diplomatic bag.

PwC's audits were the foundation for the firm's defense in a series of continuing trials against former chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the former majority shareholder, Platon Lebedev.

[163][164] In 2010, Joe Nocera in the New York Times wrote, "In 2007, with the prospect of parole on the horizon, the same prosecutors—with what appears to be the complicity of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Yukos's longtime accounting firm—indicted the two men (Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev), again, bringing a new round of Kafkaesque charges.

[166][167] A cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow stated that the trial was politically motivated and that a deposition in a U.S. court by PricewaterhouseCoopers may show that PwC was pressured by the Russian government to withdraw its prior Yukos audits.

"[171] In 2007, PwC was criticised by the Treasury Select Committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for helping Northern Rock, a client of the firm, to sell its mortgage assets while also acting as its auditor.

[172][173] In 2011, a House of Lords inquiry criticized PwC for not drawing attention to the risks in the business model followed by Northern Rock, which was rescued by the UK government during the financial crisis.

[176] PwC was found to be unethically favored by the World Bank in a bid to privatize the water distribution system of Delhi, India, an effort that was alleged as corrupt by investigators.

[180] Following the investigation by Parivartan, a campaign was waged by Kejriwal, Aruna Roy, and other activists across Delhi and the DJB withdrew the loan application to the World Bank.

[183] The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) issued a fine of £2.3m on PwC and ordered the firm to pay £750,000 costs following their investigation of the 2007 audits of Cattles and its principal trading subsidiary.

[185][186] Connaught plc, a UK former FTSE 250 Index outsourcing company operating in property maintenance for the social housing and public sector, was put into administration in 2010 after reporting material losses.

[190] In June 2017, the Financial Reporting Council said there was no "realistic prospect" that a tribunal of the UK's accountancy watchdog would rule against the auditor PwC concerning its involvement in Tesco's 2014 case.

The filings also alleged that PwC's Brazil affiliate, PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditores Independentes, played a significant role by attesting to Petrobras financial statements and ignoring warnings.

[204] In 2016, a United States federal judge rejected PwC's bid to dismiss a $3 billion lawsuit accusing the accounting firm of professional malpractice for helping cause the October 2011 bankruptcy of MF Global, a brokerage once run by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.

BT reportedly sought the immediate replacement of PwC as auditors following a breakdown of trust, but had existing commercial relationships with the other Big 4 firms which would have prevented their early appointment.

In March 2017, the board of governors for the Academy voted to retain the services of accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, despite the mix-up, saying "new protocols have been established including greater oversight from PwC's U.S. chairman Tim Ryan.

[220] In 2018, PwC Australia CEO Luke Sayers was connected to perceived conflict of interest issues on a related to a personal investment in Australian Visa Processing (AVP),[221] a company part-owned by PwC that was submitting a tender to redesign and run Australia's visa processing system that is potentially worth billions of dollars, which would result in a significant financial advantage for its investors.

[221][224] During 2019, PwC's US affiliate agreed to pay more than $7.9 million to its US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) , to settle allegations that it improperly performed IT and other non-audit services for several audit clients.

[226] Her husband, Congolese businessman and art collector Sindika Dokolo, made millions from a suspiciously one-sided partnership with the state diamond company, SODIAM, to buy a stake in Swiss luxury jeweler De Grisogono.

[232] By 2021, Evergrande had collapsed financially and set off the Chinese property sector crisis, which sparked questions about PwC's role in inflating the company's revenue prior to the firm's eventual bankruptcy.

[237] In June 2022, the UK's Financial Reporting Council fined PwC and a former partner, Jonathan Hook, over audit failures relating to construction firms Galliford Try and Kier Group.

After verifying the impacts caused, the CVM (Brazilian body that regulates the stock exchanges) opened investigations against the company's auditors to determine responsibilities.

The data leaked by the PwC partner included new taxation rules to close loopholes which allowed multinational companies to avoid paying tax.