Companies (Audit) (Jersey) Order 2010

Summary

This Order, made under the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991, sets out the framework for recognizing and regulating auditors who audit market traded companies in Jersey. It requires the Jersey Financial Services Commission to maintain a Register of Recognized Auditors, prescribes what rules recognized professional bodies must impose on their members to remain approved, and sets out independence requirements preventing auditors with certain personal, partnership or corporate connections to a company from acting as its auditor.

• Register of Recognized Auditors: The Commission must keep a public Register recording each recognized auditor's name, address, office locations, professional body membership, and (for firms) details of responsible individuals, directors, members or partners resident in Jersey.
• Annual confirmation: Each recognized auditor must give the Commission written confirmation, on or shortly before each anniversary of their entry on the Register, that the entry remains correct.
• Inspection and copies: The Register must be available for public inspection during normal office hours, and the Commission must supply certified copies of entries on request; the Commission may charge fees for inspection or certified copies and may exclude certain individual information from inspection to prevent harassment risk.
• Information requests: The Commission may require applicants awaiting entry on the Register to provide information reasonably needed for its functions, in a specified form or manner.
• Rules binding recognized auditors: Rules of recognized professional bodies must ensure auditors are fit and proper, prevent improper influence over audits, ensure competence and monitoring, set technical standards, address conflicts of interest, provide fair disciplinary procedures with appeal rights, and require auditors to be able to meet claims arising from audit work.
• Withdrawal of rule approval: The Commission must withdraw approval of a professional body's rules if, absent mitigating circumstances, the body fails to meet specified statutory obligations, arrangements, standards, cooperation duties, or notification requirements.
• Independence requirements: An auditor must not act as auditor of a company where the auditor (or, for partnerships or bodies corporate, associated partners, shareholders, directors or responsible individuals) has specified personal, employment, partnership or shareholding connections to the company or its group.

The Order applies to recognized auditors and firms auditing market traded companies, and to the recognized professional bodies whose rules govern them; it does not impose new fee amounts or transition deadlines beyond the recurring annual confirmation requirement.

Key obligations

• Recognized auditors must give the Commission written confirmation, on or shortly before each anniversary of their entry on the Register, that the entry remains correct
• The Commission must keep and maintain a Register of Recognized Auditors and make it available for public inspection during normal office hours
• The Commission must supply certified copies of Register entries on request
• Recognized professional bodies must ensure their rules meet the adequacy requirements set out in Article 12 (fitness and propriety, independence, competence, monitoring, technical standards, disciplinary fairness, and financial responsibility for claims)
• The Commission must withdraw approval of a professional body's rules if that body fails to meet specified statutory obligations, absent mitigating circumstances
• An auditor must not act as auditor of a company where prohibited personal, partnership or body corporate relationships exist under Articles 15 to 17

Applies to

recognized auditors, auditing firms, recognized professional bodies, market traded companies

Deadlines

• on or shortly before each anniversary of the entry of the name of the auditor on the Register: Recognized auditor must give the Commission written confirmation that the Register entry remains correct

Related documents

• This document is made under Companies (Jersey) Law 1991