Ernst & Young

EY
	File:EY logo.svg EY logo since 2013 rebranding
Company type	Partnership (Ernst & Young Global Limited)
Industry	Professional services
Founded	1989 (merger of Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young & Co.)
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Area served	Worldwide (over 150 countries)
Key people	Julie Boland (head of EY US, as of 2023)
Products	Assurance, tax consulting, IT solutions, advisory, financial consulting
Number of employees	Approximately 395,442 (2023)
Website	www.ey.com

EY, formerly recognized as Ernst & Young, is a global professional services organization with its main office located in London, United Kingdom. It is counted among the Big Four accounting firms, alongside Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC. EY functions through a network of member firms under the umbrella of Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK-registered company limited by guarantee.

As one of the largest international professional services networks, EY delivers a broad range of services including assurance, tax consulting, IT solutions (such as managed cybersecurity, cloud services, digital innovation, and artificial intelligence), advisory, and financial consulting.

Ernst & Young Global Limited operates as a consortium of independent legal partnerships, employing roughly 395,442 professionals across approximately 700 offices in more than 150 countries. The current partnership structure was created in 1989 following the merger between Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young & Co. In 2013, the firm officially adopted the shortened brand name EY, which had already been widely used informally.

By 2023, EY was ranked as the seventh-largest privately held company in the United States and has consistently appeared on Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For for a quarter-century—longer than any other firm in the accounting sector. Despite its prominent market position, EY has encountered criticism related to systemic issues involving recruitment, training, and organizational culture.

Origins and mergers

EY’s origins trace back over 150 years to multiple mergers, beginning with Harding & Pullein in England in 1849. Frederick Whinney joined this firm that year and became a partner ten years later. Following the involvement of his son, the company was renamed Whinney, Smith & Whinney in 1894.

In 1903, Ernst & Ernst was founded in Cleveland, Ohio by brothers Alwin C. Ernst and Theodore Ernst. Three years later, in 1906, Scottish accountant Arthur Young established Arthur Young & Co. in Chicago. Starting in 1924, these American firms formed alliances with British companies—Arthur Young partnered with Broads Paterson & Co., while Ernst aligned with Whinney Smith & Whinney. This collaboration eventually resulted in the formation of Anglo-American partnership Ernst & Whinney in 1979, which became the fourth largest accounting firm worldwide at that time.

The merger of Ernst & Whinney with Arthur Young & Co. in 1989 created what is now known as Ernst & Young.

Subsequent developments

In October 1997, Ernst & Young revealed intentions to merge worldwide with KPMG to establish the largest professional services firm. This announcement came shortly after Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand declared their merger plans. Nevertheless, due to resistance from clients, regulatory antitrust issues, financial implications, and cultural integration difficulties, the EY-KPMG merger was called off in February 1998. Meanwhile, the Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merger proceeded as planned, resulting in the creation of PwC.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ernst & Young expanded its consulting operations extensively. However, concerns emerged from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and investors regarding potential conflicts of interest arising from firms providing both consulting and audit services to the same clients—a practice common among the "Big Five." In May 2000, EY became the pioneer in fully divesting its consulting branch by selling it to the French IT services firm Capgemini for $11 billion. This led to the formation of Capgemini Ernst & Young, which was later renamed Capgemini.

Recent developments, rebranding, and growth

Following the collapse of Arthur Andersen amid the Enron scandal in 2002, Ernst & Young acquired numerous clients, although it did not gain new engagements in markets such as the UK, China, or the Netherlands. By 2006, EY distinguished itself as the only Big Four firm operating two member firms within the United States by incorporating Mitchell & Titus, LLP—the nation’s largest minority-owned accounting firm. Mitchell & Titus ended its affiliation with EY in 2015.

In response to the global financial crisis in 2009, EY implemented a cost reduction program in China that offered employees options for low-pay leave with prorated wages while maintaining full benefits. The following year, EY expanded its presence in Latin America by acquiring Terco, Grant Thornton’s Brazilian member firm.

In 2013, Ernst & Young adopted a new brand identity as EY, accompanied by the slogan "Building a better working world." That same year, EY was commissioned by the Pope to conduct an audit of Vatican City State’s financial management and administration. Additionally, EY acquired all operations of KPMG Denmark, including 150 partners and approximately 1,500 staff members.

The acquisition of The Parthenon Group in 2014—a global strategy consultancy—added 350 consultants to EY’s Transaction Advisory Services division and led to the establishment of EY-Parthenon as a leading strategy advisory practice.

In 2015, EY inaugurated its inaugural global Security Operations Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, India, committing $20 million over five years to enhance cybersecurity capabilities.

EY continued expanding within the United States by opening an executive support center in Tucson, Arizona in 2017 (creating 125 jobs), alongside launching a Digital Security Operations Center in Muscat, Oman focused on EMEIA regions with a $10 million investment. In 2018, EY established a $4.4 million professional services facility in Louisville, Kentucky (125 jobs) and announced plans for a technology hub in Nashville, Tennessee expected to generate 600 regional positions.

In November 2022, EY acquired Bridge Business Consulting, a Sydney-based firm specializing in data and analytics.

Project Everest

In May 2022, reports from the Wall Street Journal indicated that EY was exploring a division of its accounting and advisory businesses into two independent entities under an initiative called "Project Everest." The strategy involved launching an initial public offering for the consulting segment with proceeds intended to compensate partners within the newly formed auditing company. However, substantial indebtedness—primarily liabilities owed to former partners through an unfunded pension scheme—posed significant challenges. Prospective partners within the smaller accounting firm expressed apprehension about assuming this financial burden. On September 5, 2022, EY announced a partner vote regarding the proposed split; nevertheless, member firms based in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Israel opposed it. Competitors such as KPMG and Deloitte stated they had no intention of adopting similar restructuring plans.

By March 2023, Julie Boland, head of EY US, confirmed that progress on the split was halted due to disagreements over how tax services would be allocated between the proposed consulting and assurance divisions. Ultimately, Project Everest was abandoned in April 2023 after EY US withdrew its support. The preparations for this separation reportedly cost EY around $600 million.

Global organization

The company operates through three principal geographic divisions: Europe, Middle East, India and Africa; the Americas; and Asia-Pacific.

In 2018, EY realigned its regional boundaries by combining the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to establish the CESA region.

Service offerings

Over the last ten years, EY has substantially broadened its range of services to meet heightened competition within professional services and to extend into investment banking and strategic advisory. The firm’s core service categories include:

Assurance: encompassing Financial Audit, Financial Accounting Advisory, Climate Change and Sustainability Services (CCaSS), as well as Forensic & Integrity Services.
Tax: involving Transfer Pricing, International Tax Services, Business Tax Compliance, Global Trade, Indirect Tax, Tax Accounting & Risk Advisory, Tax Technology and Transformation, along with Transaction Tax.
Consulting: segmented into Business Consulting, Technology Consulting, and People Advisory Services.
Strategy and Transactions (SaT): dedicated to capital transformation activities such as Valuation, Modelling, Economics (VME), Due Diligence, Real Estate Advisory, Mergers & Acquisitions, Turnaround & Restructuring, and Corporate Finance.

Additional services include People Advisory Services focusing on HR, immigration, and workforce mobility, alongside Core Business Services like business development, marketing, legal affairs, and risk management.

EY revenues by service line – in US$ millions
	FY23	FY22	FY21	FY20	FY19	FY18	FY17	FY16
Assurance	15,096	14,282	13,567	12,821	12,646	12,534	11,632	11,301
Tax	12,088	11,240	10,467	9,765	9,460	8,995	8,179	7,751
Consulting	16,104	13,795	11,135	10,467	10,236	9,621	8,526	7,846
Strategy and transactions	6,066	5,848	4,790	4,181	4,052	3,622	3,067	2,728
Total	49,354	45,165	39,959	37,234	36,394	34,772	31,404	29,626

Audit-related issues

EY has been implicated in numerous accounting scandals including cases involving Bank of Credit and Commerce International (1991), Informix Corporation (1996), Sybase (1997), Cendant (1998), One.Tel (2001), AOL (2002), HealthSouth Corporation (2003), Chiquita Brands International (2004), Lehman Brothers (2010), Sino-Forest Corporation (2011), Olympus Corporation (2011), Stagecoach Group (2017), the Wirecard scandal (2020), Luckin Coffee (2020), and NMC Health (2020).

In 2004 EY was penalized by the SEC for a conflict of interest linked to a lucrative contract with audit client PeopleSoft; this led to a six-month prohibition on acquiring new publicly traded clients.

Following Equitable Life's near collapse in 2004, the company initiated legal action against EY but withdrew the case in 2005; EY described the lawsuit as a "scandalous waste of time and resources."

EY reached a $125 million settlement in 2009 over negligence allegations related to the bankruptcy of gold mining company Sons of Gwalia while denying fault.

In 2008 EY agreed to an $8.5 million penalty after SEC accusations concerning fraudulent accounting during audits of Bally Total Fitness.

EY Hong Kong withdrew from auditing Standard Water after it was revealed that much of the work was subcontracted to mainland China auditors raising questions about audit quality and regulatory compliance.

The SEC imposed a $9.3 million fine on EY in 2016 for auditor misconduct involving inappropriate personal relationships with clients. Later that year EY resolved another SEC investigation concerning failure to detect financial fraud at Weatherford International.

Mozilla and Symantec discontinued acceptance of WebTrust audits from certain EY affiliates due to deficiencies affecting certificate trustworthiness.

EY served as auditor for WeWork prior to its unsuccessful IPO in 2019.

A former EY partner won $10.8 million in damages in 2020 over ethical violations during a gold audit in Dubai; although EY initially appealed the decision it later withdrew its appeal.

EY failed to identify a $2 billion shortfall at Wirecard AG resulting in lawsuits and a German Bundestag inquiry exposing significant audit failures spanning multiple years.

Additionally EY overlooked $300 million in fabricated revenues at Luckin Coffee as well as undisclosed liabilities totaling $5 billion at NMC Health and Finablr.

In 2021 EY US consented to pay $10 million to settle SEC charges regarding breaches of auditor independence connected with securing Sealed Air as a client.

The UK Financial Reporting Council fined EY UK £3.5 million for audit deficiencies linked to Stagecoach Group’s 2017 financial statements; these penalties were later reduced following admissions of misconduct.

Towards the end of 2021 EY lodged a criminal complaint concerning leaked confidential German parliamentary documents related to Wirecard’s collapse.

In April 2022 administrators for NMC Health filed a negligence claim against EY seeking $2.5 billion for audit failures over seven years.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board identified multiple deficiencies in half of EY Canada’s audits reviewed during 2022.

Germany’s APAS barred EY from accepting new audit engagements for two years starting April 2023 due to violations connected with the Wirecard assignment.

A December 2024 lawsuit alleged that EY facilitated fraud by UAE-based Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Company FZE during a 2019 SPAC merger by issuing unqualified audit opinions despite falsified financial statements.

In April 2025 the UK Financial Reporting Council imposed a £4.9 million fine on EY for serious breaches found in audits preceding Thomas Cook Group’s collapse in 2019.

Exam misconduct by auditing personnel

In June 2022, the SEC imposed a $100 million fine on EY for audit staff cheating on mandatory exams required to acquire and retain Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credentials, as well as for concealing evidence during the inquiry. EY acknowledged the facts supporting the SEC’s allegations, resulting in the largest penalty ever levied against a US audit firm. Additionally, the Canadian Public Accountability Board initiated an investigation into EY’s operations in Canada concerning similar issues.

Investment banking

EY attracted criticism in 2009 for its audits of Anglo Irish Bank, where it failed to identify substantial loans extended to the bank’s chairman. Subsequently, the Irish Government assumed full control of the bank at a cost of €28 billion. Although the Irish Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board appointed an investigator, no unfavorable conclusions were drawn against EY.

That same year, EY resolved a negligence lawsuit by paying $200 million to Akai Holdings’ liquidators. The firm faced accusations of document falsification during its defense. A former senior partner at EY and his company contributed over $100 million to Akai creditors as part of a related settlement. Law enforcement raided EY’s Hong Kong office and detained a partner connected to altered audit documents dating back to 1994. Akai had been EY’s largest client in Hong Kong throughout the 1990s. EY subsequently settled a comparable HK$300 million claim from Moulin Global Eyecare’s liquidators, characterizing the financial statements as highly irregular.

The 2010 Valukas Report accused Lehman Brothers of employing repo 105 transactions to distort financial results, with EY—Lehman’s auditor—aware of but not disclosing these practices. New York prosecutors filed a lawsuit against EY in 2010 for facilitating Lehman’s financial fraud. EY maintained that its final audit of Lehman covered the fiscal year ending November 2007 and asserted that the financial statements were fairly presented. In 2015, EY reached settlements regarding Lehman-related litigation with municipalities in New Jersey and California.

In 2014, tax strategies arranged by EY for companies including The Walt Disney Company, Koch Industries, and Skype were exposed through the Luxembourg Leaks, igniting discussions about aggressive tax avoidance methods.

Ernst & Young ShinNihon, EY’s Japanese affiliate, was fined ¥2.1 billion (approximately $17.4 million) and barred from acquiring new clients for three months in 2015 due to failure in detecting accounting fraud at Toshiba—considered Japan’s most severe accounting scandal in recent years. The Financial Services Agency publicly identified seven accountants involved and condemned ShinNihon’s procedures as "deeply improper." At that time, ShinNihon was Japan’s largest accounting firm, auditing around 960 publicly traded companies and Toshiba for more than six decades.

In 2017, Ernst & Young Baltic faced allegations of applying outdated emission factors for EURO II trucks to exaggerate Rail Baltica’s socio-economic benefits by €3 billion—accounting for roughly 20% of total benefits—thereby calling into question the project’s viability. EY declined to respond to these public claims.

Sexist training program

In October 2019, HuffPost reported on a "Power-Presence-Purpose" seminar held in New Jersey by EY intended to empower female staff but criticized as being disconnected from reality. Women attending were advised to prioritize their appearance, avoid wearing revealing attire, and limit their speaking contributions. One attendee described it as an exercise that undermined women, emphasizing expectations to be excessively agreeable and avoid confrontation. In 2021, EY agreed to pay $100,000 to New Jersey and create a $500,000 scholarship fund to settle discrimination allegations related to this program.

Employment Conditions

In April 2021, junior auditors in their second year at EY’s Barcelona branch alerted management about extreme working hours, with reports indicating workloads reaching up to 84 hours weekly.

Elizabeth Broderick & Co. Culture Assessment

An independent cultural evaluation led by former Australian sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick was published in July 2023 after EY commissioned it following the suicide of a Sydney-based auditor in August 2022. More than 4,500 employees from Australia and New Zealand contributed through surveys and interviews. The findings revealed that 15% of participants had encountered bullying, sexual harassment, or racial discrimination. The review also underscored extensive working hours: approximately 40% contemplated resignation due to excessive workload, 46% experienced health repercussions, over 31% regularly worked beyond 51 hours per week, and 11% exceeded 61 hours weekly.

In April 2024, EY issued an apology regarding its workplace environment and initiated a "time-owed-in-lieu pilot" program, reporting notable advancements in applying the recommendations from the review.

Detrimental Work Environment in India

Anna Sebastian Perayil, a 26-year-old chartered accountant, passed away in July 2024, only four months after joining EY’s Pune office. Her family attributed her death to stress caused by overwork, presenteeism, and fatigue, triggering widespread national concern and discussions about toxic work environments in India.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment formally addressed the complaint, while political figures such as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar demanded a thorough investigation.

Sponsorship Initiatives

Ernst & Young supports the World Entrepreneur of the Year Award program, which operates in more than 60 countries. Originating in 1986 in Milwaukee as a single accolade, it has expanded to cover all 50 U.S. states as well as international locations.

This program honors entrepreneurs across diverse industries—including retail, technology, family enterprises, energy, financial services, and digital media—with numerous regional and category winners each year. Each participating nation selects one overall winner.

Since its establishment, this prestigious award has recognized over 10,000 founders, CEOs, and business leaders worldwide.

Arts and Media Engagement

EY UK sponsors exhibitions showcasing masterpieces by artists like Cézanne, Picasso, Bonnard, Monet, Rodin, and Renoir. A recent exhibition supported by EY was Maharaja: the Splendour of India's Royal Courts held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The company also backs the educational children’s television program Cyberchase on PBS Kids, aimed at enhancing mathematics literacy.

Additionally, EY UK sponsors the ITEM club and established the National Equality Standard (NES), a business-centric framework that defines recognized standards for equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within UK companies.

EY is also the founder of the EY Foundation, a charitable organization in the UK dedicated to supporting young people and entrepreneurs.

Sports Sponsorships

On 8 September 2011, EY was confirmed as an official sponsor for the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Brazil, acting as the exclusive consulting and auditing service provider to the Rio 2016 organizing committee.

EY has partnered with both the 2012 Ryder Cup and 2014 Ryder Cup, supports the British and Irish Lions, and maintains a longstanding association with 2011 Tour de France champion Cadel Evans.

In April 2019, EY commenced a two-year partnership with USA Rugby as their Official Principal Partner. This collaboration focuses on digital innovation, sport growth within the United States, and advancing diversity and inclusion initiatives.

External links