LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s accounting watchdog, the Financial Reporting Council, fined accountants Grant Thornton 650,000 pounds ($833,950) on Tuesday for errors in an audit of a company the regulator declined to name.

The Council (FRC), which regulates auditors, accountants and actuaries, said the breaches relate to auditing the principal assets of a company.

“The work done on the sampling of those assets was inadequate and failed to select an audit sample that was sufficient to reduce the sampling risk to an acceptably low level,” the FRC said in a statement.

Naming the company was not in the public interest, the FRC said.

The fine was discounted to 422,500 pounds for early settlement of the case. The audit partner, also unnamed, was fined 20,000 pounds, discounted to 13,000 pounds.

Grant Thorton failed to challenge the client’s management sufficiently or prepare adequate audit documentation, but no breach was intentional, dishonest or reckless, the FRC said.

The audit, for 2016, did not need to be restated, however.

Grant Thornton said it regretted that the audit fell well short of expectations.

“We note that the FRC’s decision does not question the truth or fairness of the company’s financial statements for the relevant year end,” Grant Thornton said in a statement.

It is a further blow to an accounting firm that is also being investigated by the FRC for its audit of cafe chain Patisserie Valerie which nearly collapsed last year.

Following this, Grant Thornton announced an independent review and a 7 million pound revamp of its UK accounting operations in June.

($1 = 0.7794 pounds)