PricewaterhouseCooper gets to keep job – continues accounting for Academy Award

It looks like all’s well that ends well for the accounting firm after its goof with the Academic Award Best Picture winner during the Award ceremony last February, but there’s a caveat – PwC people will no longer be allowed to have cell phones backstage during the award ceremony.

This follows weeks of speculations on whether PwC will lose its illustrious position as the Academy Award sole accountant, which it has handled since the inception of the ceremony 89 years ago. However, a mix-up of the Best Picture winner envelop during February’s Oscar award looked like it would jeopardise that long (and perhaps close) relationship in what some described as an unprecedented error.

 

Here’s a recap of what happened as narrated by vox.com.

“The night’s biggest award — Best Picture — was handed to the wrong film, presumed frontrunner La La Land, because presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong envelope. It bore the name of La La Land’s Emma Stone, who had won Best Actress moments before.

 

The three credited producers for La La Land were almost through their triumphant speeches — indeed, the third, Fred Berger, was in the middle of speaking — when producer Jordan Horowitz was forced to take the microphone and say the film had lost to Moonlight.”

 

PwC , the accounting firm that counts the Oscar ballots, issued a statement taking the blame for the mix-up:

“We sincerely apologise to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.

 

We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”

 

PwC also further clarified the source of the error the following Monday via another statement.

“PwC takes full responsibility for the series of mistakes and breaches of established protocols during last night’s Oscars. PwC Partner Brian Cullinan mistakenly handed the back-up envelope for Actress in a Leading Role instead of the envelope for Best Picture to presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Once the error occurred, protocols for correcting it were not followed through quickly enough by Mr. Cullinan or his partner.”

 

So, you can understand the reason for the caveat banning phones backstage, which seems pretty mild considering what was at stake. Perhaps that long relationship between the two organisations had something to do with it.