Conclusion

Many of the group auditors prefer to participate of the consolidated companies audit due to the fact that the group auditor is the only responsible for the consolidated audit report. Many International audit firm engage/impose to the client, in the consolidated audit its own branch from the respective country due to the fact that the methodology and audit procedures are the same. If the respective branch does not have the sufficient experience/knowledge in order to do the job (ex: If does not have a separate department for banks audit or sufficient experience), the group auditor will appeal to other auditors, or will let the client to chose it. Also, the instructions and the questionnaire sent to the component auditors help the group auditor to ensure the quality of the work performed by component auditors and also he is confident that the risks were asses during the audit work and if there was a problem, a material one, that was fixed (adjusted) or appear in the audit report. Also, the integrity of the component auditors is checked, due to the fact that small audit companies have also other types of services, which could make them impartial. The need for regulation for group audit increased during the last period due to the break of the borders in the business environment. The biggest companies extend their business in reached for new markets and lower human workforce price and transform themselves into multinational companies. In order to present a fair view of the company, the must be a consolidation process. Where is a consolidation process, the need for a audit report is mandatory. The audit report gives confidence to the shareholders. For my group audit, the opinion issued was without reserves, in major part because the mother company was the biggest one and was audited also by me. As you can see in Annex 10, the biggest amounts are of F Company. The other companies do not have any material amount. In my opinion, the group audit regulation is just at the beginning of its life and I expect more regulation coming sun. Although the standard for group audit was established, it must pass a period before these regulations will be implemented into the national GAAP. Without a regulation for consolidation and group audit, there could not be issue an opinion for a group. Uncontrolled access to data, with no audit trail of activity and no oversight would be going too far. This applies to both commercial and government use of data about people. John Poindexter