Because the letter from the four Senators is a public document accessible under the Freedom of Information Act, the response from KPMG would need to be carefully crafted. If you were in Lynne Doughtie’s position, would you respond to the letter from the Senators? If so, what would be some of the challenges in crafting your response?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Due to the public release of the letter from the Senators and the high profile nature of the Senators
involved, especially Bernie Sanders who earlier in 2016 was a candidate for U.S. President, KPMG
had to carefully handle its response. Due to the publicity surrounding this event, it was in KPMG’s
best interest to respond – think how the public would view a lack of response from the firm. More
importantly, the four Senators demanded a reply by November 28, 2016. If no response were received,
the Senators would most likely draw public attention to that. Furthermore, the U.S. Congress has the
ability to issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to produce testimony or documents.
Developing a response would need to be carefully done. While KPMG would seek to defend
the firm against inappropriate and inaccurate claims and assertions made by the Senators, the firm
would want to avoid being overly defensive and disrespectful to the Senators and the related issues
involved. Also, given the high profile nature of their response (it also is a public document), the firm
would need to be extremely accurate in the facts included in their letter given the potential legal
implications if any false information was included.
The appendix to this solution includes a copy of the KPMG response.1