Stalled Marrakech Resort Project Faces Audit Scandal as KPMG Partner Implicated

The project had planned the construction of hundreds of villas, apartments, luxury hotels, shops. But since its launch in 2006 with the blessing of King Mohammed VI, it is at a standstill. One of the partners of the KPMG audit firm is suspected of having helped the project promoters, Alain Crenn (GAC) and Richard Hennessy, to conceal the accounts of their company. The two investors were unable to release the first tranche of work even though several individuals have already bought villas off-plan. In May 2011, they end up ceding 51% of Marprom, the Moroccan company carrying the project, to another real estate investor, Gaël Paclot, associate of Daniel Boisson, one of the first buyers of the houses.

The new investors inject ten million euros into the project, an amount that was supposed to allow the completion of the first houses, the proceeds from the sale of which would be used to finance the rest of the work. But several months after taking over the project, Paclot and Boisson were unable to access its bank accounts. They file a complaint against GAC before the Paris court, accusing him of having concealed the financial difficulties of Marprom. The case is entrusted to Judge Patricia Simon who, after going to Morocco and ordering an accounting expertise, decided to indict Richard Hennessy and Alain Crenn.

The two investors are accused of fraud, forgery and use of forgeries, money laundering of tax evasion and presentation of non-compliant accounts. The judge also indicted a KPMG France executive for complicity in the presentation of non-compliant accounts. In October 2021, she canceled the accounting expertise for a procedural defect. The investigation opened has revealed that KPMG Morocco, one of the two local statutory auditors of Marprom, had refused to certify the results of the 2010 financial year. The company’s financing needs would not be 10 but 38 million euros.

KPMG Morocco sent a detailed report to KPMG France in July, which had already certified the French accounts of GAC. The KPMG France executive then sought the opinion of a second Moroccan statutory auditor. "Alain Crenn and Richard Hennessy were well aware of the non-compliant nature of the accounts and undertook to falsify the presentation of the accounts, their closing and their adoption. The constitution of these forgeries was only possible thanks to the intervention of KMPG France," the Court of Appeal said in its ruling.

"The criminal liability of KPMG France as a legal person must be engaged," says Marc-Michel Leroux, Daniel Boisson’s lawyer. In the latest news, a new judge has taken over the case. But more importantly, Yazid Sabeg, the former diversity commissioner of Nicolas Sarkozy and CEO of CS Group (defense, aeronautics...) would have bought Marprom and intends to complete the construction of the villas and a five-star hotel.