IL&FS conducts forensic audit of group firms' rating agencies in 10 years

IL&FS conducts forensic audit of group firms' rating agencies in 10 years

Crisis-hit IL&FS Thursday said it has completed the first phase of forensic audit of credit rating agencies that were engaged by its group entities in the last 10 years.

Grant Thornton, which was appointed by the IL&FS board to carry out the forensic audit, has submitted its report.

"The audit evaluates the role of the credit rating agencies in rating various debt instruments and facilitating excessive borrowings from money markets across Group companies that eventually led to defaults," a release said.

The mandate is to audit the role of the credit rating agencies and ascertain whether there were any possible wrong-doings in rating IL&FS group companies during 2008-2018 period.

According to the release, several e-mails between the erstwhile management and the representatives of credit rating agencies during the specified period have been analysed.

CARE, ICRA, India Ratings and Brickwork were the main rating agencies for group companies ITNL, IFIN and IL&FS during the period.

From 2016, Brickwork replaced Crisil for ITNL and IFIN, the release said.

The interim report has been shared with relevant stakeholders, sector experts and legal teams, it added.