Bharti to wait & watch on Price Waterhouse

Bharti Airtel, which has Price Waterhouse (PW) as its internal auditor, today said it would observe the Satyam fraud developments, where the accounting firm is facing probe, before taking any decision on parting ways.

"Investigation is still not over. So it is not justified for any corporate to pass any judgement on PW. We will wait and watch whatever emerges out of the pending investigation," Bharti Enterprises Managing Director Akhil Gupta said.

Ernst & Young is the external auditor for Bharti.

PW is the auditor of Satyam Computer whose founder Ramalinga Raju earlier this month admitted to financial irregularities of about Rs 7,800 crore. The newly-inducted board of the company later hired two foreign audit firms -- KPMG and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu -- to restate the accounts books. But the company has not yet replaced PW as auditor as removing auditors need shareholders' approval.

PW has been accused of negligence and not verifying the financial documents given by the Satyam board on bank accounts, FDs.

Gupta said good corporate governance is a constant exercise in Bharti.

"We always look at how we can improve our corporate governance.... We are proud of that but there is always scope of improvement and we are always looking for that. We have nothing to do with some episode reported here and there," he said.