Audit report: firms to be forced to bare all
Any accountancy firm wanting to audit listed companies could have to reveal its full financial figures and disclose details of its international networks.
In the government’s auditing interim report, the firms are called upon to improve their own openness and transparency by providing better information on their processes and practices.
The report said it would ‘welcome further work on the proposition that that such firms should be required to provide this information as a condition of appointment as statutory auditors of listed or public interest companies’.
Under current partnership law, firms do not have to disclose any financial information, though there is a requirement to do so under the recently introduced limited liability partnership law.
Only two of the Big Four firms produce financial reports and accounts ? KPMG and Ernst & Young. PricewaterhouseCoopers has said it would do so once it had adopted LLP status.