The week, straddled between February and March, is already over halfway done, but there’s still a lot of buzz going on about what happened at the climax of the 89th Academy Awards just this Sunday night. We know the story now, of how the ‘Best Picture’ presenters announced musical “La La Land” to be it. A mad scramble and frantic discussion onstage revealed, by the “winning” producer Jordan Horowitz himself, that indie masterpiece “Moonlight” was the real best picture. We also know that the mix-up in envelopes – Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway got a spare ‘Best Actress’ card – was laid at the feet of accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

But now we also know what’s going to happen to the PwC accountants on the scene.

No ‘Steve Harvey redemption’

A spokesman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced that two PwC accountants, Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan who were in charge of looking after the winners’ envelopes (and their spares), have discharged this duty in their last Oscars. While they won’t be booted out of the accounting firm altogether, the two of them will no longer be allowed to join PwC’s dedicated Academy Awards team. It should be recalled that PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the most trusted accounting firms in the world. The magnificent flub last February 26, which PwC has taken full responsibility for, was blamed on “breaches of established protocols” and good old human error, in their own opinion.

Cullinan, a PwC managing partner, was the one who handed Beatty and Dunaway the problem envelope, a spare copy of the ‘Best Actress’ decision with Emma Stone’s name and the title of “La La Land” on it. No explanation has been given on why he made the mistake, or on the long time taken for the correct Oscars winner to be announced after discovering the flub.

‘Damning’ photos

On Wednesday March 1, “Variety” published some pictures during Oscar Night showing Cullinan backstage, with two envelopes and a phone in his hands moments before the ‘Best Picture’ awarding. A tweet from him, now deleted, showed a photo he took of Emma Stone winning ‘Best Actress’, likely taken and posted on his smartphone.

PwC however didn’t comment on the possibility that Cullinan tweeting “on the job” may have led to him absently handing over the wrong envelope that led to the flub. Cullinan himself kept silent on the matter.

The protocol of PwC for the winner presentation involved Cullinan and his associate Ruiz each holding a suitcase with identical sets of envelopes with the Academy awardees’ name. Standing on opposite sides of the stage, they would have given the envelopes to the relevant presenters as they entered from either side.
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