Audit regulators in the United States and the U.K. agreed to continue cooperating on cross-border supervision of audit firms, the U.K. Financial Reporting Council (FRC) announced Thursday.
The agreement between the FRC and the PCAOB does not contain an expiration date, but follows recent European Commission decisions that allow such agreements until July 31, 2016.
The agreement allows for joint work on inspections and exchanges of otherwise confidential information.
“The FRC and the PCAOB have developed an excellent working relationship in recent years, which has provided the basis for increasing confidence in one another’s regulation of major audit firms,” Paul George, executive director of the FRC’s Conduct Committee, said in a statement.
A data protection agreement signed by both parties describes the limitations on data that can be made available to the PCAOB, and the PCAOB’s responsibilities for protecting data from the U.K.
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Ken Tysiac (
ktysiac@aicpa.org
) is a JofA senior editor.
