The Commission for Public Oversight on Statutory Auditors was established in compliance with the Directive 2006/43/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Sofia 1000
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On 24th November 2009 the Commission for Public Oversight of Statutory Auditors organised a round table “Quality Assurance for Statutory Auditors: European Criteria and Practices” at the Sofia Grand Hotel. The event was held on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the Commission.
In his opening address the Chairman of the Commission – Dr Nikolay Chatalbashev presented the directions of the organizational efforts in the past period, a review of the inspection results and outlined the problems identified in the working process.
The guests of the round table were Ms Christine Thin, President of Haut Conseil du Commissariat aux Comptes, France; Ms Raluca Painter, Officer at the Audit Department Internal Market and Services DG; Mr Costa Cotsilinis, Chairman of the Accounting & Auditing Standards Board, Greece; representatives of the Ministry of Finances, Bulgarian National Bank, Commission for Financial Supervision, Institute of Certified Public Accountants, large audit firms.
Ms Christine Thin presented the French system of public oversight explaining the structure of Haut Conseil du Commissariat aux Comptes, the mechanism of funding the oversight body and made a clarification on the definition of public interest entity according to the French law as there are various criteria for a PIE in the different EU member states.
Ms Charlotte Le Levreur, director of Audit Inspections directorate, made a more detailed contribution on the selection and activity of the inspectors in НЗС.
Ms Raluca Painter focused on the EC policy on quality assurance for statutory auditors and audit firms and development trends.
Mr Costa Cotsilinis introduced the structure of the Accounting & Auditing Standards Board,
Representatives of the profession took part in the follow-up discussion. These main issues were formulated:
► Selection of inspectors and their follow-up training. This issue turned out to be common with the other oversight bodies, participating in the round table.
► As regards of quality control sanction is not as important as the pursuit of improvement of the activity of auditors.
► Under the circumstances of a global crisis a crisis in the activity of statutory auditors has also been identified. Strict compliance with audit requirements needs bigger financial resources.
► The issue of amendments of the Independent Financial Audit Act was put forward – are they timely and what directions of amending to be followed?
Closing the meeting the Chairman of the Commission for Public Oversight of Statutory Auditors pointed out that the round table had achieved its objectives – assessment of the work already done and more important - the outline of the future assignments of the Commission.