Opinie 29 september 2011

Barnier: tipje van de sluier

Er zijn de nodige speculaties over de definitieve voorstellen van Eurocommisaris Barnier. Er is echter nog niets definitief. Wel is een recent concept uitgelekt. Het is waarschijnlijk, zoals dat wel is genoemd, 'an authorized leak, designed to test the waters'. Zo werkt het politiek bedrijf.

Ik beschik over de uitgelekte versie, maar het is niet aan mij die op het web te zetten. Normaal schrijf ik niet over (nog) niet-openbare stukken die wel in mijn bezit zijn. In dit geval breek ik gegeven de speculaties en hetgeen er in de Angelsaksische landen over wordt geschreven met die gewoonte, maar beperk mij wel tot de weergave van de belangrijkste voorstellen in de vorm van citaten.

Lichtere regels onderkant controlemarkt
'When medium-sized undertakings are audited pursuant to EU law, the amended Directive requires Member States to ensure that the way in which the auditing standards are applied are adapted to the dimension and scale of those undertakings. Moreover, small undertakings conducting audits either required by national law or voluntarily, should also benefit from this proportionate application of the standards. This calibration of the audit to the size of the audited entity should result in better audit services to the small and medium-sized undertakings concerned and possibly lower cost. The proposed measure does not define in detail how proportionate application of the standards must be done; applying the subsidiarity principle, this is left to the discretion of Member States.'

Verbod big four - of andersoortige bias
'In the context of the appointment of statutory auditors and audit firms, Article 37 prohibits clauses according to which a third party suggests, recommends or requires the audited entity to appoint a specific statutory auditor or audit firm.'

Beperking vergoedingen
'Fees for the provision of statutory audits shall not be based on any form of contingency. Moreover, if the auditor provides related financial audit services to the audited entity, such fees shall be limited to 10% of the audit fees paid by the audited entity.'

Controle en overige dienstverlening
'Providing non-audit services by auditors or by any members of their audit networks while auditing an undertaking presents a source of conflict of interest. Therefore, it is appropriate to require that no statutory auditor, audit firm or member of the audit firm's network provides non-audit services to their audited entities. However, related financial audit services could be provided. In addition, audit firms of significant dimension should focus their professional activity on the carrying out of statutory audit and should not be allowed to undertake other services unconnected to their statutory audit function such as consultancy or advisory services. A list of services that shall be considered to be outside the scope of such related financial audit services would include book-keeping, preparing accounting records and financial statements, valuation services, providing fairness opinions or contributions-in-kind reports, actuarial services, designing and implementing financial information technology systems, designing and implementing internal control or risk management procedures, legal services, human resources services and tax advisory services and tax consultancy.'

Meer duidelijkheid over reikwijdte controle
'Therefore, the content disclosed to the public should be expanded and improved so that it explains the methodology used, especially how much of the balance sheet has been directly verified and how much has been based on system and compliance testing, the levels of materiality applied to perform the audit, the key areas of risk of material misstatements of the financial statements.'

Invoering joint audit
'The limited choice is the consequence of a number of barriers preventing auditors from entering the upper segment of the market. These barriers have caused high concentration. In order to increase the choice, the appointment of more than one auditor (joint audit) by large PIEs should become mandatory. This will provide the opportunities for the smaller firms to get exposure, demonstrate their capability and build reputation over time so that they become real competitors to the current biggest audit firms both in size and in expertise. Joint audits would contribute to higher audit quality through complementary and combined expertise, applying the four eyes principle at all stages of the audit and also increase capacity at the top end of the large PIE market.'

En:

'Therefore, large public-interest entities should be required to appoint more than one statutory auditor or audit firm to carry out the statutory audit. At least one of them should not be among the largest statutory auditors or firms in the concerned Member State. However, where the complexity of the statutory audit requires in-depth and very specific knowledge of a field of activity, and/or geographical coverage in many countries that only few statutory auditors or audit firms possess, it should be acceptable that the public-interest entity appoints two of the largest statutory auditors or audit firms to carry out the statutory audit concerned. In such case, the public-interest entity should justify before the prudential supervisory authority the reasons which constitute the objective grounds for appointing both statutory auditors or audit firms amongst the largest of the market.'

Kantoorrotatie en tendering
'Just the rotation of key audit partners, which was required by EU legislation, and self-regulation regarding the organisation of audit firms do not address the threat of familiarity that results from the audited undertaking often appointing and re-appointing the same audit firm for decades. This lack of change in auditors has created a perverse pressure on the incoming partner not to lose long standing 'audit clients'. The introduction of mandatory rotation of audit firms combined with tendering would deal with that problem.'

Aanvullend: maximaal negen jaar accountant bij dezelfde cliënt.

Grotere rol toezichthouder
'Monitoring the developments in the market for the provision of statutory audit services to PIEs, in particular (but not exclusively) in relation to market concentration levels, including at the level of specific sectors, and assessing the need for structural measures to mitigate any risks arising from high concentration such as: establishing caps on market shares, requiring the deconsolidation of audit firms or carving out part of the sectoral expertise of large audit firms.'

Transparantie op kantoorniveau via de toezichthouder
'Publication of individual quality assurance reviews report.' en: 'Publish individual inspection reports.'

Groepsaccountant
'In the case of consolidated financial statements, it is important that there is a clear definition of responsibilities of the statutory auditors who audit different entities of the group. For this purpose, the group auditor should bear full responsibility for the audit report.'

Tot slot
Vorig jaar noemde ik het Groenboek van Barnier teleurstellend. De probleemanalyse was niet overtuigend en is dat nog niet. De vraag is of hij nu de juiste oplossingen voor het juiste probleem aandraagt.

Duidelijk is dat het de komende tijd hard werken wordt voor de lobbyisten. In november worden de voorstellen definitief en openbaar. De concepten zijn niet door iedereen met gejuich ontvangen en roepen nu al veel discussie op. Dat zal nog wel even voortduren. Met deze bijdrage hoop ik enige duiding te hebben gegeven voor de Nederlandse discussie.