Private consulting firm KPMG, which charged $118,000 for providing personal “tax advice” to the boss of ASIC, has been running the regulator’s internal auditing operations.

The Federal Government has failed to take the central step in one of the biggest corporate governance scandals in decades by refusing to actually “ask” the Remuneration Tribunal whether payments to ASIC bosses were legal.

The corporate regulator ASIC has allegedly been the victim of the most serious case of alleged internal fraud in its existence, it reports.