You Are a Partner in a Medium-Sized Firm of Auditors

You are a partner in a medium-sized firm of auditors and one of your clients is Bolting Brothers Ltd a firm of fish processors. Bolting Brothers is owned jointly by Bill and Ted Bolting. You have a very good relationship with each of them and they trust you to be fair and equitable as you have advised them for many years both in the business and in connection with their private financial affairs. They have fallen out over the future direction of their business and have decided to split the business and go their separate ways. Both of them have come to you and asked you to advise them on the split of the business. What should you do?

A) They trust you and you know the business well so the easiest thing to do is to advise them and ensure the split is done properly from a financial and taxation point of view
B) Decide which of the brothers you should advise and recommend that the other one seek advice from another audit partner in your firm.
C) Tell them you can't advise either of them and recommend they each go to another firm.
D) Recommend both brothers each seek advice from another audit partner in your firm and act as an advisor and source of information to both.