2024-09-06 06:12:37
Parliament has finally adopted at second reading changes to the Independent Financial Audit Act, which will now be called the Independent Financial Audit and Sustainability Assurance Act.
The bill introduces Directive (EU) 2022/2464 into Bulgarian legislation. The aim is to increase information security regarding sustainability reports of large enterprises operating in the country, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises of public interest, which are not micro-enterprises, whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market. The sustainability reports produced and published by these businesses will be subject to verification to express a limited or reasonable degree of assurance.
The amendments regulate the rules for acquiring the qualification of a registered sustainability auditor; the rights, duties and responsibilities of registered sustainability auditors; the requirements regarding the implementation of sustainability security commitments; the rules for building and functioning of the System for guaranteeing the quality of the professional activity of the registered sustainability auditors, incl. for investigations, sanctions and whistleblowing, writes BTA.
Qualification of a registered sustainability auditor will be acquired after successfully passing written exams in the following areas: regulatory requirements and standards related to the preparation of annual individual and consolidated sustainability reports; sustainability analysis; monitoring, analysis and control processes on sustainability issues; regulatory requirements and standards for assurance of sustainability adopted by the European Commission. The training will be conducted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
An auditing company that has performed a mandatory financial audit of a financial statement of a public interest enterprise shall withdraw after having performed audit engagements under a mandatory financial audit for a period of ten cumulative years. This audit firm cannot perform audit engagements for this enterprise for a period of five consecutive years from the date of its withdrawal, the deputies also agreed.