Singapore auditor oversight system recognised as equivalent to the European Union

Singapore is amongst the first batch of ten countries, including Australia, Canada and the US, to gain this recognition.

According to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, the Decision paves the way for audit regulators in individual EU Member States to establish cooperative arrangements with the ACRA with a view to relying on ACRA's oversight of Singapore audit entities that audit companies listed in the EU Member States, rather than to subject these entities to separate oversight by the EU audit regulators.

Ms Juthika Ramanathan, Chief Executive of ACRA said: “ACRA is pleased to have received this recognition. This is a good testament to the robustness of our regulatory framework being recognised by our fellow regulators. Such cooperative arrangements between ACRA and the relevant EU Member States will minimise the duplication of oversight efforts and alleviate the regulatory burden on our firms.”

This Decision was a result of assessments carried out by the European Commission with the aim to foster international cooperation between audit regulators in the selected countries and in the EU. The assessments focused on ascertaining the equivalence of the selected countries’ systems with that of the EU’s, in terms of their audit oversight, quality assurance, investigation and penalty for auditors and audit entities.