Anguilla publishes audit guidelines

Chris Hamblin

21 December 2015

The Company Management Act, the Insurance Act, the Money Services Business Act, the Mutual Funds Act and the Trust Companies and Offshore Banking Act require certain licensees to send their audited annual financial statements to the FSC, or at least to make them available. The following criteria will apply:

membership of a professional body of which the FSC approves;
use of appropriate accounting and auditing standards (i.e prepared in accordance with international financial reporting standards or IFRS and audited in accordance with international standards 'on' auditing or ISAs);
sufficient expertise and resources;
continuing professional education;
quality assurance review process;
'independence' - a peculiar word to describe a situation in which the auditee is paying the auditor; and
professional indemnity insurance in most cases.

As a general rule, the FSC expects partners to have a minimum of five years' auditing experience of financial institutions at a management level, in the respective industry sectors or businesses they are auditing. If a firm does not have partners with the necessary experience, the regulator may, at its discretion, limit the range industries or licensees that the firm can audit.

Each auditing firm ought to follow a competent quality-assurance process that ensures that it complies with internal and any externally-imposed standards. This process should include pre-established guidelines requiring "concurring partner review" of the audit procedures and audit work and regular internal quality-control reviews of the firm’s processes and methodology by experts of that firm. No audit firm is permitted to audit financial statements of a licensee if it (or a closely related entity such as a corporate services company with the same owners) has prepared the financial statements.