Internal Audit & Controls

For an accounting firm auditing companies under the supervision of Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority, an inspection will no longer necessarily end when the regulator leaves the room. The CMA Board has approved amendments to the Rules for Registering Auditors of Entities Subject to the Authority’s Supervision, tightening requirements around professional qualifications, quality management, regulatory inspections and transparency. The amendments take effect from the date of their publication.

A critical system goes down, and the operations team needs an administrator inside it immediately. Privileged access, however, requires approval, and the designated approver is unavailable. A change may restore the system, but normal procedure requires testing before anything reaches production. Meanwhile, the recovery clock is running.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) has updated its ordinance concerning the appendix to audit reports for payment institutions. This update clarifies reporting requirements and the application of specific regulatory versions for financial years ending after certain dates.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has published its latest round of inspection reports covering several major accounting firms, including Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC. These reports provide critical transparency into the quality of audit practices and regulatory compliance within the auditing profession.

The UK's audit watchdog has fined Ernst & Young £1,197,000 after concluding the firm failed to obtain sufficient audit evidence in critical areas of its 2021 audit of online furniture retailer Made.com Group, shortcomings the regulator said stemmed from an inadequate challenge of management's forecasts.

In its Annual Enforcement Review 2026, the UK's Financial Reporting Council does more than catalog another year's worth of enforcement activity. It draws a line from the mistakes uncovered in investigations to the weaknesses the regulator continues to see in financial reporting, audit quality, and firms' internal systems of control. Just as importantly, it explains how those cases are shaping the FRC's supervisory work and the standards it expects the profession to meet.

On Wednesday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission wrote to every registered company auditor in the country with a reminder that reads less like routine regulatory housekeeping than a response to a profession under unusual scrutiny. Trust, ASIC told auditors, has become part of the story. That alone explains why the regulator felt compelled to restate obligations that already exist in law.