Auditor won't sign off Adecco results

TEMPORARY staffing agency Adecco, which is being probed by US financial authorities over alleged accounting irregularities, has again delayed releasing its results after independent auditors Ernst & Young refused to sign off its 2003 figures.

Last-minute investigation by US lawyers acting for Adecco's audit committee into emails 'between senior professionals in the company' have held up tomorrow's planned release of last year's full-year audited results, which were due out in mid-January, and of a detailed report of first-quarter trading.

Ernst & Young was last week fined by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and banned from signing off new publicly traded clients in the US for six months for failing to provide independent auditing for software giant PeopleSoft between 1994 and 1999.

An Adecco spokesman denied any link between the SEC ban and E&Y's decision to delay signing off its accounts.

The Swiss-based company said it had not found 'evidence demonstrating major misappropriations or irregularities that would be financially significant to the company as a whole in 2003'.