Discover the key areas influencing the ecosystem’s resilience, with the recording now available
Check out our full blogpost on the challenges to attract younger people in the accountancy professions
If you have missed our two in-person events held in October, you can now go to our webpage where you will find the events’ short recap and recording:
The European Commission (EC) published the ‘final’ delegated act (DA) to adjust SME thresholds in the EU Accounting Directive for inflation on 17 October. This follows a short stakeholder feedback gathering period that ran from 13 September to 6 October.
The final DA contains only very little changes to the draft DA that was flagged in the September Audit Update. However, it does clarify the timeline for the application of the new thresholds. Member States are to apply these new thresholds at the latest from financial year 2024, with the possibility to opt for early application for financial year 2023.
As usual with such DAs, the European Parliament (EP) and Council now have two months to reject it. If they do not, it will automatically enter into force.
The EC published the call for evidence on rationalisation of EU reporting requirements on 17 October. Stakeholders may provide feedback until 28 November.
The four-page document calls on stakeholders to help EC identify areas where EU reporting requirements could be:
This is the only written public consultation that EC intends to hold on the matter, but as a follow-up it will organise workshops with relevant stakeholders to further identify reporting optimisation opportunities in specific areas of EU legislation.
The EC published the DA on auditing, derived from the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), on 20 October. The act will be under the scrutiny of the EP and Council for a period of three months.
The DA’s purpose is to provide a framework to guide providers of very large online platforms & very large online search engines and auditing organisations in the preparation and issuance of audit reports and audit implementation reports.
On 23 October, the Council adopted the EU green bond standard regulation, with Austria, Germany and Luxembourg abstaining.
This follows the EP’s endorsement of the political agreement on the file, reached earlier this year with a big majority.
To recall, the EU green bond standard is meant for companies and public entities that wish to raise funds on capital markets to finance green investments while meeting sustainability requirements. The regulation also sets up a registration system and supervisory framework for external reviewers of EU green bonds.
The regulation will be signed by the Presidents of the EP and Council and then will be published in the EU’s official Journal before entering into force 20 days later.
The UK Government has withdrawn draft regulations after consultation with companies raised concerns about imposing additional reporting requirements. Instead, it will pursue options to reduce the burden of red tape to boost the competitiveness of the UK.
Draft regulations published in July intended to introduce additional corporate and company reporting requirements to large UK listed and private companies, including an annual resilience statement, distributable profits figure, material fraud statement and triennial audit and assurance policy statement.
The Government remains committed to wider audit and corporate governance reform, including establishing a new Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) to replace the existing Financial Reporting Council (FRC).
