For the first time after an audit, the Treasury excluded a large audit company from the register

For the first time, the Federal Treasury excluded a large audit company from the register of audit companies inspecting socially significant organizations. For the auditor, such a decision threatens the loss of clients and reputation. According to experts, due to the tightening of regulatory checks, such exceptions may affect any company on the market.

As Kommersant learned, on December 11, 2023, the Federal Treasury excluded Rosexpertiza from the register of audit organizations providing services to socially significant organizations (PSO). This is one of the largest audit companies – according to RAEX, it ranked 12th in terms of revenue from audit services in 2022 (RUB 401 million). The Treasury and the Central Bank did not answer Kommersant’s question about the inspections.

The audit took place from September 11 to November 3, 2023, covering the company’s work over two years. From the Treasury data it follows that the company violated the provisions of the Law “On Auditing” in terms of compliance with independence rules. The specialized SRO “Commonwealth” reflected the information in the register of audit organizations at the end of December 2023.

Rosexpertiza did not respond to Kommersant’s request. However, the company’s report states that an order was received from the Treasury to eliminate the identified violations, “which will be completed within the prescribed period.”

The rules come into force with reporting for 2024. But, according to Rusaudit CEO Evgeny Samoilov, if companies are required to review reporting for six months (as a rule, this is the practice for companies whose securities are traded on the stock exchange), they begin to act already for reporting the first half of 2024 year, so the company must be on the register by the end of March 2024. Meanwhile, according to experts, restoring an auditor to the register may take from several months to one year.

According to market participants, this is the first time the Treasury has excluded a large company from the register. The regulator’s decision may threaten the auditor with the loss of part of the business and reputation. “If a company is excluded from the list, then a very large amount of work actually disappears,” explains FBK partner Alexey Terekhov. “This is an economically very important event for the company, since the number of clients classified as OZO can reach dozens, and their audit costs millions of rubles.” .

According to the reports of Rosexpertiza for 2022, the OZO audit accounted for about 56% of the company’s total revenue. That year, she conducted audits of more than three dozen OOOs, including such as Gazprom Neft, Zarubezhneft, Slavneft, and Surgutneftegaz. According to the General Director of Univers-Audit Dmitry Limarenko, such companies are very sensitive to the reputation of their auditor, and therefore there is a risk that they will not want to work with the company, even if it returns to the list.

According to market participants, other audit companies may also face exceptions, including because treasury audits have become more frequent. If previously they were held once every three years, then since last year they have been held annually, if the auditor is classified as an organization with an extremely high or high risk, and this is “more than 80% of all wards of the regulator,” explains one of Kommersant’s interlocutors.

In addition, according to Kommersant’s interlocutor in the audit market, after the exclusion of a large company from the register, there may be a tightening of requirements for market participants and an increase in the number of inspections by market regulators, and distrust of market participants on the part of the OSOs themselves.

Yulia Poslavskaya