Alon Cohen, Eva Marie Carney, Publications
Memorandum: PCAOB Undertakes To Ensure That Auditor Independence Evaluations Are Better Informed
May 1, 2008
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board last week adopted Rule 3526 regarding Communication with Audit Committees Regarding Independence. The Board’s action concluded a rulemaking focused on assuring that public company audit committees have before them, at the time they consider engaging a new auditor, certain additional information that could inform the committees’ assessments of the auditors’ independence. Until now, the rules required only that auditors make an annual independence disclosure to their clients’ audit committees. In this short memorandum, our attorneys Eva Marie Carney and Alon Cohen discuss the added requirement that an auditor, prior to its initial engagement, disclose to the audit committee all relationships that could “reasonably be thought to bear on the auditor’s independence” from the prospective audit client.
