Audit committees in Europe
A key feature of effective corporate governance, audit committees play a pivotal role in overseeing the integrity and quality of financial reporting. As such, they are a natural source of insights into how businesses are approaching changing governance, reporting, audit and risk management requirements.
ICAEW and Deloitte have been working together to help enhance understanding of how audit committees in a number of EU member states have evolved and are functioning today. Our joint research initiative explores the challenges and opportunities facing audit committees in different countries, by sharing insights from audit committee members themselves linked to composition, role, performance evaluation, audit quality, impact and challenges for the future. In doing so we hope to contribute to broader reflections on the role and responsibilities of audit committees in Europe.
Facing change: audit committees in Europe
In 2019, ICAEW and Deloitte examined the evolving roles and changing perceptions of audit committees in a further six EU countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, The Netherlands and Portugal). In addition to assessing ways of working and areas of impact, the report considers how audit committees are dealing with evolutions in corporate reporting and corporate governance frameworks while responding to the accelerating technological transformation of business and society.
Making a difference: audit committees in Central and Eastern Europe
In 2017, ICAEW and Deloitte came together to survey audit committee members in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. We found that audit committees in CEE were playing an increasingly important role in ensuring reliable and informative reporting. While in many instances the changes were significant, a number of challenges still required attention.