Companies Act 2014 section 1620

Confidentiality and professional secrecy

Section 1620 extends the existing confidentiality and professional secrecy rules that apply to statutory audits so that they equally apply to the assurance of sustainability reporting.

• The same confidentiality and professional secrecy obligations that govern statutory audits apply in full to sustainability reporting assurance engagements.
• All audit-related terminology in the existing rules is read as referring to sustainability reporting assurance — for example, "statutory audit" becomes "assurance of sustainability reporting" and "key audit partner" becomes "key sustainability partner".
• References to audit working papers, audited undertakings and ceasing to act as auditor are similarly reinterpreted to cover assurance working papers, the company subject to sustainability reporting assurance, and ceasing to act as sustainability assurance provider.
• Any other necessary modifications are also applied to ensure the confidentiality framework operates appropriately in the sustainability reporting assurance context.