PCAOB Hits Roadblock in Inspecting Chinese Audit Firms

The Chinese authorities are continuously creating resistance in the way of PCAOB - the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board for inspecting the audit firms present in China.

James Doty, the chairman of the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board on Wednesday informed the American Institute of CPAs’ conference about PCAOB and current Security Exchange Commission – SEC progress, and how the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board has administered to get bigger its worldwide assessment plan in other countries as well in China.

The chairman of PCAOB also said in his one statement, “We have done inspection in about 46 foreign authorities till date. Also in 18 of these authorities, we have done assessment in cooperation with other local oversight audit body. This improves our local risks understanding.  And in my opinion it is also helping the local bodies to get the advantage of vast information about global operations of firms.”

The PCAOB is taking support from European Commission for working with the European authorities. So Doty said, “We will carry on to strong the relation with the European partners. And we will attain protocols with limit the list of European authorities where we do not at present examine, due to local managerial or governmental obstacles. In the list this year Luxembourg, Hungary and Greece are included. But the China is always a challenge for the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board. We also did inspection in Africa, Asia, America, Australia and Canada excluding China. We are trying our level best to access inspection in China by communicating with the treasury departments of China along with U.S. and China strategic and economic dialogue to direct the Chinese authorities to work out conditions of a direct inspection program with us. But currently we are unfortunately we are facing significant difficulties in China. “