The Ontario Securities Commission (“OSC”) recently published OSC Staff Notice 52-724 Considerations for Public Accounting Firms in Developing Internal Ethics Policies and.
<h2>Introduction – The Impact of Other Auditors in a Global Audit</h2>
<p>The increasing integration of world economies and the resultant globalization of multinational public companies has led to increased use of, and more significant roles for, accounting firms and individual accountants other than the lead auditor (“other auditors”) on many issuer audit engagements. In 2021, for example, 26 percent of all issuer audit engagements and 57 percent of large accelerated filer audits involved the use of other auditors by the lead auditor. In some cases, engagements include the use of other auditors that may not even be registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) and that work in countries with different business cultures and languages from those of the lead auditor.</p>
This alert updates our initial alert on the CTA published on March 1, 2021, to reflect the final rule published by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) bureau of the U.S..
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, PCAOB, secured complete access to inspect and investigate audit firms in China. SEC identified over 170 companies as issuers that have retained public accounting firms located in a foreign jurisdiction the PCAOB is unable to inspect.