An auditor's nightmare

THE accounting scandal at Tesco, the United Kingdom's biggest retailer, has entered a sinister stage. It is suggested that senior management deliberately misled the auditors over accounting for income from suppliers. The size of the problem has also increased - the "error" now amounting to more than £250 million (S$508 million) in one six-month period and the possibility that it goes back to several previous years.

We won't know much more about it for a few months as it has become a criminal…