A single market for audit services will be created on the territory of the EAEU

The Ministry of Finance of Russia spoke about the agreement on the implementation of audit activities within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Its participants are all the member states of the EAEU: the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation. The main goal of the agreement is to create a single market for audit services based on common approaches to the organization, regulation and control of audit activities on the territory of the EAEU.

The agreement prescribes the procedure for admission to audit activities (requirements for persons engaged in (participating in) audit activities, the implementation of these requirements in national legislation) and the rules for maintaining national registers of audit organizations, individual auditors and auditors (information included in them, bodies leading them and the interaction between them, the language of the registries, the disclosure of information from the registries). It also defines auditing standards, the institution of audit secrecy, requirements for internal quality control of audit services, organization of the provision of audit services, and so on.

According to the provisions of the agreement, audit organizations and individual auditors included in national registers will not need to undergo any additional procedures (without additional registration in these states) to conduct activities in the territory of other EAEU member states.

External quality control of work will be carried out by national regulatory authorities both in relation to audit organizations and individual auditors registered by them, and in relation to those whose information is included in the national registers of other EAEU member states, but providing audit services in this state.

To implement the agreement, the EAEU member states will also conclude an agreement on administrative cooperation in the field of audit to determine the procedure for interaction between the bodies of the EAEU member states authorized to carry out the functions of regulating audit activities, responsible for maintaining registers that exercise external quality control.