Embattled consultancy would not divulge details of deal, which was struck two months before the federal government referred the matter to the AFP

Embattled consultancy firm PwC Australia reached a settlement with the Australian Taxation Office months before the true scale of a scandal involving the misuse of confidential tax policy was publicly revealed.

Details of the settlement and the events that triggered it are not known and would not be divulged by PwC, but the timing of the deal has led the New South Wales Greens to warn the firm may have “secured some kind of a sweetheart deal before the full picture of wrongdoing had been exposed”.

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