Former Deloitte partner dinged by PCAOB for failures in Bancolombia audit

A former Deloitte partner will pay $75,000 and be barred from working as a public company registered accountant for two years by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) after violating audit standards during a 2016 audit.

Gabriel Jaime López Díez, a former Deloitte partner based in Colombia, “failed to perform necessary audit procedures and failed to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence before authorizing the issuance of the firm’s unqualified audit opinions” on a 2016 audit of Bancolombia’s financial statements, the PCAOB said in a press release Wednesday.

Deloitte paid $900,000 in 2023 to settle allegations laid by the PCAOB that the firm’s quality control system failed to provide it with reasonable assurance for its audit work’s compliance with PCAOB standards in the same 2016 audit of Bancolombia. The PCAOB also found that some members of Deloitte’s team on the Bancolombia engagement had financial conflicts of interest, including mortgage loans or brokerage accounts with the bank.