Auditors mostly agree with the European Commission’s Green Paper on audit policy, issued last October, but the extent to which the structure of the audit market contributed to the financial crisis is arguable, Mike Bishop, EMEA director of Nexia International, one of the largest global accounting networks, said at an international audit conference in Budapest. The Commission opened a debate on the role of the auditor, the governance and the independence of audit firms, the supervision of auditors, the configuration of the audit market, the creation of a single market for the provision of audit services, the simplification of rules for small- and medium-sized enterprises and international cooperation for the supervision of global audit networks.“We definitely have to make a difference between small- and medium-sized companies that operate with normal economic risk and enterprises operating with significant risk such as financial enterprises and listed companies,” Bishop said at the conference, adding that increased attention should be paid mostly to the second group. “We believe it is important that any reshaping of the audit market recognizes not only the requirement for transparency but also the need to limit the regulatory burden on smaller companies,” Bishop said.
This article appeared in the BBJ's Law & Tax special report on May 6, 2011.
