PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited

PricewaterhouseCoopers is the product of two separate Victorian accounting practices. Price Waterhouse was founded in London in 1849 by Samuel Lowell Price and later expanded by Edwin Waterhouse. Coopers & Lybrand was founded by William Cooper in 1854. For nearly 150 years, the two firms were direct competitors — both operating globally, both serving the world's largest companies, both considered among the most prestigious names in the profession.

Price Waterhouse won the audit of U.S. Steel — the world's first billion-dollar corporation — in the early twentieth century, establishing itself as the auditor of choice for America's largest industrial companies. The firm's reputation for rigour attracted clients who wanted their financial statements taken seriously by investors. In an era before the SEC existed, the name "Price Waterhouse" on an audit report was the closest thing to a government guarantee.

Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand announced their merger in 1997 and completed it in 1998, creating PricewaterhouseCoopers — at the time the largest professional services firm in the world. The merger reduced the Big Six accounting firms to the Big Five. Regulators approved it despite competition concerns, accepting that the global nature of audit work required global scale. Two firms that had competed for 150 years became one overnight.

At the 89th Academy Awards ceremony in February 2017, PwC accountants mistakenly handed presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope. Beatty announced La La Land as Best Picture. Producers and cast members took the stage. Then a PwC representative walked on and announced that the actual winner was Moonlight. The firm had managed the Oscars vote count for 83 years without incident. The two accountants responsible were never allowed to work the Oscars again. PwC retained the contract.

In 2023, PwC Australia became the centre of one of the most damaging scandals in the firm's history when it emerged that a senior partner had leaked confidential government tax policy information to colleagues, who used it to advise corporate clients on how to avoid the new rules before they were announced. The Australian government had shared the information with PwC in confidence. The scandal triggered parliamentary inquiries, forced the resignation of the firm's CEO, and prompted a global review of how the Big Four's consulting and audit practices conflicted with each other.