Ernst & Young (doing business as EY) is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London. EY is one of the largest professional services firms in the world and is one of the “Big Four” accounting firms.
EY operates as a network of member firms which are separate legal entities in individual countries. It has 250,000 employees in over 700 offices around 150 countries in the world. It provides assurance (including financial audit), tax, consulting and advisory services to companies.
The firm dates back to 1849 with the founding of Harding & Pullein in England. The current firm was formed by a merger of Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young & Co. in 1989. It was known as Ernst & Young until 2013 when it underwent a rebranding to EY. The acronym “EY” was already an informal name for the firm prior to its official adoption.
In 2018, Fortune magazine ranked EY 52nd on the 100 Best Companies to Work For list. In 2017, EY was the 9th largest privately owned organization in the United States.
According to EY’s filing, the company is planning to convert all recovered assets into Canadian dollars. It is also going to allocate funds to Quadriga’s customers depending on cryptocurrency prices from 2019.
Ernst & Young’s blockchain analyzer with its inbuilt Explorer & Visualizer solutions makes it possible for internal audit teams and accountants to search for specific transactions, addresses, and blocks to gather relevant information.
EY subsidiary in Germany has been Wirecard’s trusted auditor and with KfW accounting records under scrutiny by the German government the bank has indicated its readiness to drop EY in order to avoid conflict of interest.
