Corporate audit committees may want to pose this question the next time they meet: Who's conducting our audit? Compliance Week reports that more and more auditing firms--including Big Four firms--are outsourcing audit work overseas. The firms are quietly sending some low-risk tasks associated with audits to contractors where labor is less expensive.
Some auditing firms have discussed this practice openly in a recent academic paper, but CW was unsure whether the companies' clients are aware of the practice. Audit firms are required to disclose any sharing of confidential client information with a third party. The question is, do those standards apply when the information is sent overseas?
For more:
- read the Compliance Week article [1]
Related Articles:
Time for a renewed focus on outsourcing compliance programs? [2]
Factor Sarbox into outsourcing plans [3]