Coverage: PricewaterhouseCoopers faces Oscars backlash

The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers was on the defensive Monday after it made a mistake at the Oscars on Sunday night, resulting in the wrong movie being named film of the year.

Michael Cohn of Accounting Today had the news:

Beatty was apparently given the envelope for the Best Actress winner, Emma Stone, who had just received her award a few minutes earlier for the movie “La La Land.” After opening the envelope, he looked at it in confusion for a few moments and turned to his “Bonnie and Clyde” co-star, Dunaway, who chided him, “You’re impossible. Come on.” She then looked at the card and announced that “La La Land” had won the Best Picture nod. The producers of “La La Land” rose to accept the award and began giving their speeches as a PwC accountant, Martha Ruiz, rushed onstage to inform the stagehands that “Moonlight” had actually won the award, according to the Washington Post. “He took the wrong envelope,” she reportedly said, according to USA Today.

One of the producers of “La La Land,” Fred Berger, acknowledged midway through his speech that they had lost, as another producer, Jordan Horowitz, stepped forward to confirm that his movie had lost, holding up the correct card that named “Moonlight” as the winner.

“Guys, guys, I’m sorry, no, there was a mistake,” he said. “Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke.”

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel joked, “I think you guys should keep it anyway. Guys, this is very unfortunate what happened. Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this,” referring to the host who mistakenly crowned the wrong Miss Universe in 2015.

“Warren, what did you do?” Kimmel said to Beatty, as he stepped forward to the microphone.

David Gelles and Sapna Maheshwari of the New York Times reported on the reputation hit to the company:

PricewaterhouseCoopers had given the presenters, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, the wrong envelope.

The stunning reversal instantly became the central theme of the Oscars, repeated endlessly on television and swamping social media. And just as quickly, PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the so-called Big Four accounting firms, had a major brand crisis on its hands.

“Not since Janet Jackson and her wardrobe malfunction on the Super Bowl have we seen something quite as glaring as this snafu,” said Andrew D. Gilman, chief executive of the crisis communications firm CommCore Consulting Group. Although most of PricewaterhouseCoopers’s clients are aware that mistakes can happen, “the name of the firm has unfortunately been a little sullied,” he added.

The two identical sets of sealed envelopes are stationed on either side of the stage. The two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners who oversee the voting process, Martha L. Ruiz and Brian Cullinan, each have a briefcase with a complete set of the envelopes.

Nathan Bomey and Kevin McCoy of USA Today reports that the impact may be short-term:

Next comes a business scramble as the New York City-based company with $35.9 billion in 2016 revenue seeks to avoid a permanent blow to its reputation. Corporate reputation experts predicted Monday that short-term damage is likely inevitable but said the long-range business outlook hasn’t necessarily dimmed.

“At the end of the day we made a human error,” Tim Ryan, U.S. chairman and senior partner of PWC told USA TODAY on Monday. “We made a mistake. What happened was, our partner on the left side of the stage, Brian Cullinan…handed the wrong envelope to (actor) Warren Beatty. And then the second we realized that we notified the appropriate parties and corrected the mistake.”

Efforts to reach both Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, the other PwC accountant who oversees Oscars balloting and award presentations, were unsuccessful. The firm’s role in the movie industry’s biggest event has long been a source of pride for the firm.

Rivals Ernst & Young audits the Emmys and the Golden Globe awards and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu audits the Grammy awards. Both companies, along with PwC, are among the big four U.S. accounting firms. Grant Thornton, which is not as large, audited the 2016 Tony awards.