Companies Act 2014 section 1578

Supervisory Authority may assess matter of equivalence for purposes of section 1577(2)(c)

Section 1578 allows the Supervisory Authority to carry out its own assessment of whether a third country's auditing standards and requirements are equivalent to those required for registration in Ireland, in circumstances where the European Commission has not yet made a formal decision on that equivalence.

• Where the European Commission has not yet decided whether a third country's auditing standards are equivalent, the Supervisory Authority may step in and make its own equivalence assessment for the purposes of registering third country auditors and audit entities.
• In carrying out this assessment, the Supervisory Authority must apply the general equivalence criteria established by the European Commission, rather than developing its own independent criteria.
• The purpose of the assessment is to determine whether audits of financial statements carried out by third country auditors meet the international auditing standards and independence requirements needed for registration in Ireland.
• The general equivalence criteria used by the Supervisory Authority in its assessment must be applied uniformly to all third countries without distinction.

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