This is laid down in the Audit Commission Act, which gives local electors a temporary right of access to the detailed financial records of English councils and police and fire authorities (including contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts).
The recent financial crisis presented auditors and, by extension, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act audit reforms, with their first big test since these reforms were put into place.
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Straight after the 1995 act, audit firms started doing less work, says Lynn Turner, formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission but now at Colorado State University.
Section 10A(a) of the Exchange Act requires each audit to include procedures designed to provide reasonable assurance of detecting illegal acts that would have a direct and material effect on the determination of financial statement amounts.
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In 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley act limited what kind of non-audit services an American accounting firm can offer to an audit client.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 made it very clear that audit clients were no longer supposed to utilize their audit firm as the accounting technical advisor.
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Until the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed after Enron, the audit industry was self-regulating and established its own professional standards, enforced only via peer reviews.
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The audit committee was responsible for complying with parts of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which, in response to the Enron, Tyco International, and WorldCom financial scandals, sought to establish new standards for corporate boards, management, and auditors.
His appointment to the new audit-oversight committee, which had been established under the Sarbanes-Oxley act on corporate governance, was already controversial.
Under the Companies Act of 2006, effective for the whole of the United Kingdom, auditors must sign audit opinions in their own name, for and on behalf of the firm, effective with fiscal years starting after April 6, 2008.
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Except for the brief period of mutual antagonism after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, auditors behave more than ever as if their client is management, and now the Audit Committee, rather than investors.
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