Brussels, 19/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 19 January, the European Commission adopted a decision recognising the equivalence with EU rules of the supervision systems for auditors of the following 10 countries: South Africa, Australia, Canada, China, Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. The process of making the rules equivalent is still under way in the United States, so the equivalence has been decided upon only until 31 July 2013 and the Commission will revise the situation before then to decide on future options. The equivalence decision covers public supervision, quality assurance, investigations and penalty systems.
It is now for member states to decide on signing bilateral agreements with the countries in question. Once ratified, the member states will be able to rely on inspections carried out by supervisors in the 10 countries, particularly for big auditing companies like the “Big Four”: KPMG, Ernst&Young, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu).
The decision also allows auditors in 20 other countries to continue to work in the EU until the end of 2012 without being subject to EU supervision, namely auditing companies in Abu Dhabi, Bermuda, Brazil, Dubai, Egypt, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jersey, Malaysia, Mauritius, New Zealand, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey. Before the end of 2012, the Commission will continue its analysis in order to potentially decide on equivalence with EU rules of these countries' supervision for auditors. (M.B./transl.fl)