Investigate EY India office after worker’s death finds he did not have a work permit

An Ernst & Young (EY) office in western India, which employed a 26-year-old man who allegedly died after dealing with a heavy workload, has been operating since 2007 without a state permit governing the program thing, a senior government official told Reuters.

EY is facing scrutiny in India over the death of audit director Anna Sebastian Perayil, which her mother blamed on an “abusive” workload in a letter to EY India’s chairman.

The incident has already sparked a federal government investigation.

In a statement late on Tuesday, EY said its global member firm where the inspection took place, SRBC & Co. LLP, “provides full cooperation to the Ministry of Labor in its investigation”. He declined to comment further.

The need for better efforts to protect employees in high-pressure jobs against deteriorating physical and mental health has been widely discussed since the death of a junior banker at Bank of America in May, and JPMorgan last week created a new role for to address such concerns. .

Maharashtra Additional Labor Commissioner Shailendra Pol, whose team inspected EY’s office in the western city of Pune, said it was operating without mandatory registration under the state’s Shops and Establishments Act.

The law limits the maximum working time for adults to nine hours per day and 48 hours per week.

“The company only applied for registration with the labor department in February 2024 and we rejected it because it has not applied since 2007 when this office started,” Pol told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that EY had seven days to explain range.

If failure to comply with the law results in an accident causing serious bodily injury or death to a worker, it could result in imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to 500,000 rupees ($5,979) or both.

Perayil’s mother, Anita Augustine, claimed her daughter faced an “overwhelming workload” in her letter, which went viral on social media. “He worked late into the night, even on weekends, with no chance to catch his breath.”

EY has previously said it places “the utmost importance on the welfare of all employees” and that it “takes family correspondence with the utmost seriousness and humility”.

Perayil’s family said he died of cardiac arrest.

Pol said his team also sought details from EY, including the company’s logbook for employee hours, welfare policies and whether Perayil was asked to work excessively during her four months as an associate at the accounting giant .

EY said it employs about 100,000 people at its member firms in India.

($1 = 83.6390 INR)

(Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Louise Heavens)