CMA issues warning to PricewaterhouseCoopers

MUSCAT: Oman’s market watchdog Capital Market Authority (CMA) on Monday issued a regulatory warning to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for certain discrepancies in its audit of a listed firm wherein the financial statements previously audited by PwC had to be changed significantly after CMA’s inspection.

“CMA’s review concluded that PwC had failed to discharge its statutory obligations to the shareholders and other stakeholders with due care because of which the misstatements of the company’s financials and other financial irregularities remained undetected by PwC during its tenure as the auditors of the company,” CMA said in its press statement.

Abdullah Salim Al Salmi, executive president of CMA, stated that “legal and regulatory requirements make audit com- pulsory to ensure integrity of financial reporting. CMA treats auditors as the first line of defence and places reliance on them. The financial statements audited by the audit firms are trusted by the investors to make their investment decisions and used by lenders to grant loans.”

“This necessitates that the audit firms must implement robust quality controls and internal review procedures so that the field work is adequately supervised. It is also very important that the field audit work should be led by qualified and experienced professionals who should be given sufficient time and resources to carry out the audits.”

The regulatory warning to PwC has been issued in line with of Auditors Accreditation Rules. The Capital Market Authority will conduct a review of the quality control procedures of the firm in due course after completing corrective steps.