News Article - 23 May 2012
Category:

An independent working group has been set up by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) to come up with guidelines for using agreements to limit public company auditor liability.

Chaired by Sir Anthony Colman, the group will consist of representatives from firms such as Ernst & Young, Savills, PKF and Threadneedle Asset Management.

It will produce draft guidance for public consultation, which will be published later this year, and will cover the form of the contracts used by auditors to negotiate liability terms with public firms and the initial agreement process.

"Earlier this year the FRC was approached by the accountancy profession and asked whether it would be willing to prepare guidance on the use of these liability limitation agreements," commented Paul Boyle, chief executive of the FRC.

"We agreed to do so only if the proposal was also acceptable to the corporate and investment communities, and that remains the basis on which we will proceed."

Earlier this week, the FRC published a report on its work during the first quarter of 2007.

The publication covered developments such as the Market Participants Group's report on UK audit market choice and investigations by the Accountancy Investigation and Discipline Board into the collapse of European Home Retail and Farepak.

Article keywords:

---

More industry news

• Think tank warns UK may have already slipped back into recession
• Growing demand for HR staff in technology and international sectors
• Boosting business growth a ‘priority’ to avoid Eurozone slowdown
• HMRC launches alternative disputes pilot scheme this week
• December employment statistics disregard gloomy recruitment predictions
• Eurozone manufacturing PMI shows modest improvement
• UK scores highly for economic governance by ratings agency
• Government launches two-year project focusing on manufacturing sector
• Burden of regulation on UK businesses ‘too high’

Back to news home page »