The PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditors responsible for the biggest fiasco in Oscars history had previously boasted that their 83-year-old contract had never come up for tender because they "always" do a good job, it has emerged.

Brian Cullinan, one of the only two people in the world supposed to know the Oscar winners before the ceremony, had said: “It’s such a long-term relationship that we know intricately how everything works, the timing of it, the process that we use, and they have absolute trust in us and what we do.”

But that relationship could be in doubt for the first time today, after executives were seen in crisis meetings following an on-stage catastrophe in which La La Land was mistakenly announced as best picture.

In fact, the accolade had gone to Moonlight in an envelope mix-up not discovered until it was too late.