Do we like them?

Do we like EY?

Big Four accounting network: audit, tax, consulting and advisory. Network run from London; about 400,000 people in 150+ countries.

Our score: 4 out of 10. We'd hold back. EY has a long record of audit failures, fines and a recent client-data breach. Its climate targets and community work don't outweigh that.

EY is one of the Big Four accountancy giants, with a global network run out of London. Janet Truncale became global chair and CEO in July 2024 and was the first woman to lead a Big Four firm. Fortune says EY made $53.2bn in revenue in her first full year, with consulting and tax driving growth.

The big black mark is Wirecard. Germany's audit watchdog APAS banned EY from taking new public-interest audit clients for two years and fined it €500,000 over its 2016-18 audits of the payments firm. EY had signed off that company's accounts for years before it collapsed. A German court did later say EY Germany couldn't be held liable in one shareholder suit.

Ethics trouble goes beyond Germany. In 2022 the US SEC fined EY $100m, the largest penalty ever imposed on an audit firm, after a significant number of its auditors cheated on CPA ethics exams. EY admitted the SEC's findings. In 2025 the UK's FRC fined it over Thomas Cook audits and, separately, £325,000 for breaking audit-rotation rules.

This year EY said an unauthorised party got into an IT support platform and downloaded documents tied to some clients. A proposed class action followed in New York in July. On the people side, the WSJ reported US partner cuts, after EY had let go 3,000 US staff following its failed break-up plan.

On the plus side, EY's published strategy targets halving emissions by FY30 and net zero by FY50, and says the target is validated to SBTi standards. It also runs pro bono social-impact projects. For us, the fines and the breach outweigh that: it's a 4 out of 10.