BOSTON (Reuters) - PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Friday its lead partner who signed off on Tyco International Ltd.'s 2002 audit has been removed from the account as prosecutors examine financial transactions central to their criminal case against former senior Tyco executives.

Richard Scalzo, who was the PwC engagement partner on the Tyco account, has been replaced as lead partner, said David Nestor, a spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Nestor declined further comment.

Tyco's accounting is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Over the past year, Tyco's stock has been battered by scandal and persistent accounting worries. As the engagement partner on the Tyco account, Scalzo was responsible for the PwC accountants who conducted the conglomerate's audit. He also signed the clean auditing opinion on Tyco's annual financial statement and made presentations to Tyco's board of directors. In 2002, Tyco paid PwC about $51 million for audit work and other services, according to Tyco's proxy statement. Scalzo's tenure came under increasing scrutiny last year when a criminal investigation mushroomed against Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco's former chairman, and Mark Swartz, its former chief financial officer.

The two men are accused of looting Tyco out of $600 million through unauthorised pay deals and fraudulent stock sales. A PwC partner named Mark Ondash is now the lead partner on the Tyco account, according to three people who have direct knowledge of his appointment.

Tyco said on Thursday it has not made any commitments beyond fiscal 2003 to keep PwC as its outside auditor.

New York City prosecutors have said in court that PricewaterhouseCoopers was aware of some of the transactions that allegedly enriched Kozlowski and Swartz. The men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

PwC has said it is co-operating with prosecutors, but it is not a target of the investigation.

At Tyco's annual meeting on Thursday, a shareholder resolution to remove PwC as Tyco's auditor received nearly 25 percent of the votes cast, a signal of growing investor impatience with the accounting firm. Based in Boston, Scalzo served as the engagement partner on the Tyco account for several years.

But last year, Tyco's new management team asked PwC to bolster its presence on the account as New York City prosecutors and US regulators stepped up their scrutiny of the company's accounting and internal controls, Tyco Chairman Edward Breen said at the company's annual meeting in Bermuda.

In December, an internal investigation by lawyer David Boies uncovered $382 million in accounting errors. While Tyco said the errors did not represent significant or systemic fraud, the Bermuda-based conglomerate admitted previous management used aggressive bookkeeping to boost results.