National, European and International in Public Oversight of the Audit Activity

Author:Univ. Prof. Horia NEAMŢU, Ph. D.

JEL:M42, M41, M40

DOI:

Keywords:public oversight, audit, accounting, transparence, audit practices

Abstract:
he public oversight of the audit activity became a subject of interest with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act emergence in 2002. One of the most important issues for which the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was created for was the Enron Scandal and consequently, the PCAOB (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) was set up, as a measure of triggering the public oversight of financial audit. The PCAOB’s mission is the surveillance of companies’ public audit in order to protect the interests of the investors, as well as the public interest for establishing accurate and independent audit reports. PCAOB acts for improving the audit quality, for reducing the risk of audit failure for U.S. listed companies and for increasing the public confidence in the financial reports and the audit profession. In May 17, 2006, the European Union issued the 2006/43/EC Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on statutory audit of annual accounts and consolidated accounts. Several challenges for the audit regulated profession have been triggered in some European States. Consequently, the audit profession changed from a self-regulated profession into a regulated one. \r\n

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