Evergrande audit critic GMT says China research trips now too risky

HONG KONG -- GMT Research, the accounting research firm that took on PwC over its auditing of embattled developer China Evergrande Group, says it will no longer do on-the-ground investigations in mainland China, as a new state secrets law has sown uncertainty.

"I wouldn't do the kind of trip we did previously, where we have kind of just turned up there and looked around, and if somebody told us, 'You can't do that,' then we would sort of say, 'OK, we'll move on,'" Nigel Stevenson, an analyst at GMT Research, told Nikkei Asia in an interview. "The whole Evergrande thing was a bit of a luxury."