The administrators of Greensill Capital have secured a £71mn settlement from the defunct trade financier’s former auditor Saffery.
Saffery, then known as Saffery Champness, audited Greensill between 2014 and 2019 and came under scrutiny following the firm’s high-profile collapse in 2021.
The nature of the claim brought by Greensill’s administrators, Grant Thornton, against the auditing firm has not been publicly disclosed or heard in court, but the two sides confirmed that a deal has been reached.
“We are pleased to have reached this settlement,” a Saffery spokesperson told GTR. “This legal case is now closed, allowing us to continue to focus on delivering our high-quality services to our clients.
“The terms of the settlement are confidential, so we are not in a position to comment further.”
Greensill’s administrators Grant Thornton said in a progress report made public last week they had “made a recovery pursuant to a confidential settlement entered into with [Greensill’s] former auditor”.
A separate table detailing recoveries between September 2025 and March 2026 includes £71mn from the settlement with Greensill’s auditor. It was the only significant recovery to be made by the administrators during the period.
Grant Thornton declined to comment. Neither side disclosed when the settlement was reached.
Greensill collapsed in 2021 after Australian insurer Bond & Credit Company revoked its insurance cover and months of scrutiny over the company’s closeness to the GFG Alliance group of companies belonging to steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s accounting regulator, announced an investigation into Saffery shortly after Greensill’s collapse, which remains ongoing.
Last year the FRC fined PwC £2.89mn over its auditing of Wyelands Bank, part of the GFG Alliance. The FRC’s investigation into PwC was announced at the same time as its probe into Saffery.
The Financial Times reported in 2020 that Saffery and Greensill had agreed that the financier had outgrown the accounting firm’s services, but that large auditors such as Deloitte, KPMG and BDO had turned down Greensill’s business due to conflicts of interest and reputational concerns.
Separately, the progress report on Greensill’s administration shows Grant Thornton has billed £49.3mn in costs and £33.3mn in expenses since the administration began. The administrators said they expect to seek another extension of the administration when it expires in September.
Grant Thornton is still pursuing options to recover the US$587mn owed to the firm by GFG Alliance companies, the report said, including participation in mammoth legal proceedings in Australia due to begin in September.
