Annual Report 2016

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Key activities 2016 | FAOA 2016
Key activities 2016
Financial and Regulatory Audit
State-regulated audit firms continue
to be inspected periodically. The
scope of these inspections is based
on an annual risk analysis. Since
2015, the FAOA covers the regulatory
as well as financial audit area. A
joint inspection was again performed
with the US PCAOB at a large audit
firm. The volume of whistleblowing
investigations in the year under
review was comparatively high.
Legal and international
Almost all pertinent legal proceedings
went in favour of the FAOA in the
year under review. It is noteworthy
that the Federal Supreme Court decided
that the FAOA may investigate
whistleblowing cases even without
an explicit legal basis. In the international
area, the Federal Council decided
upon a moderate de-regulation
of the extra-territorial jurisdiction of
the FAOA (Art. 8 AOA), whereby the
initiative for the submission came
from the FAOA.
Third party notifications
The FAOA received 36 (prior year: 35)
third party notifications of possible violations
of law or professional law in
the year under review. Of these, ten
(prior year: five) relate to the work
of state-regulated audit firms. Eligible
and credible notifications lead to
FAOA fact-finding. No proceedings
(prior year: five) have been initiated
to date as a result of notifications received
in the year under review. However,
two offences relating to auditing
without a licence were reported
to the prosecuting authorities as a
result of notifications.
Licensing
By law, audit firms must renew
their licences every five years. Only
a few licence renewal applications
were received in the year under review.
The next great renewal wave
is only expected to start in 2018.
The number of new licence applications
from both firms and individuals
was similar to last year.