The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission both signed on to a protocol statement aimed at boosting cooperation in overseeing auditors and public accounting firms that practice in the two regulators’ jurisdictions
Said Mark Olson, the U.S. audit oversight board chairman: “The PCAOB strongly believes that dialogue and cooperation among auditor oversight bodies are critical to every regulator’s ability to meet the challenges that come with the increasingly global capital markets.” The protocol statement, he said, “serves as another successful example of cross-border cooperation between the PCAOB and its counterparts abroad.”
The PCAOB is currently working with a number of other non-U.S. oversight bodies to set up cooperative arrangements, according to Rhonda Schnare, the board’s director of international affairs. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act directs the board to oversee and inspect all the accounting firms that regularly audit U.S. public companies. More than 780 audit firms now registered with the PCAOB are located outside of the United States, in over 80 countries. Nearly 40 of those firms are in Australia.