The Big Four firm’s legal team had contributed to its handling of the whistleblower’s concerns
KPMG general counsel Louise Capon has left the Big Four firm after finalising the negotiation of her departure with the KPMG board, reported the Australian Financial Review.
She exits KPMG’s national executive committee with immediate effect but will stay on as general counsel until a replacement is recruited. Her deputy, James McClelland, is also being pushed to resign.
Capon had faced calls to resign since mid-June. She had led the legal team that contributed significantly to KPMG’s handling of concerns raised by a former audit director in 2024 regarding the firm’s supposed misuse of confidential client data.
McClelland had conducted the initial investigation into the claims. The whistleblower was reportedly denied legal protections; moreover, KPMG did not conduct a proper investigation for two years. The director escalated the issue to KPMG International, independent directors, Chartered Accountants ANZ and ASIC before taking the matter to Labour senator Deborah O’Neill. Then-KPMG chairman Martin Sheppard told directors to reach out to Capon.
Both firms had determined that no wrongdoing took place; however, per an Ashurst report written in May 2025, KPMG informed the law firm that the whistleblower disclosed “high-level information” about the claims, per AFR. Thus, Ashurst concluded that the whistleblower’s allegations did not qualify as protected disclosures.
Ashurst reportedly hinged its review on “file notes of discussion between KPMG and [the whistleblower]” and the assertion that an internal investigation had proven the claims to be “false and misleading”, per statements published by AFR. The firm approached the matter as a workplace complaint and said KPMG did not need to take further action, although another investigation noted that it was possible that the whistleblower’s claim of private Lendlease board papers being misused by KPMG was true.
Meanwhile, Allens’ December 2025 report concluded that the majority of the disclosures it examined would not be protected under whistleblower laws, although it was possible that a court could find some disclosures eligible. Even then, KPMG would not have violated the safeguards.
The parliamentary inquiry aims to determine whether KPMG chose to protect its legal position rather than address the whistleblower’s claims. Capon is expected to attend a hearing on Friday.
In an email sent to her team yesterday August 11, a snippet of which was published by the AFR, Capon wrote there was “plenty of time to work through a transition”. She said she would be tackling firm remediation projects as well during this period.
