A separation of the Big Four's audit functions into separate businesses would dramatically speed up their expansion into the legal services market, according to various market executives.

Following the surge of MPs calling for an industry overhaul of the Big Four in the wake of scandals such as BHS and Carillion, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last month (April 2019) published recommendations for an audit separation. Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers could now be forced to hive off their audit function into separate entities, to reduce their market dominance