Chapter 2 Organization and Structure of the Auditing Profess(18)

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Auditing/Related Services, all of which are codified in AU Section 8000 of AICPA Professional Standards. (The related services addressed by the standards are compilations, reviews, and agreed-upon procedures engagements.)

For the most part, the provisions of the standards coincide closely with comparable U.S. standards. Although the standards are not authoritative in the United States and are not covered by the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, if a standard is intended to be issued that would deviate significantly from U.S. standards, the AICPA's Auditing Standards Board or Accounting and Review Services Committee considers ways of resolving the differences. In addition, the IAPC has issued ten International Auditing Practice Statements, which are intended to assist auditors in implementing the provisions of certain ISAs. This series of

statements, which are codified in AU Section 10,000 of AICPA Professional Standards, does not have the same authority as the ISAs.

In recognition of the need for a model of ethical guidelines that could be used as the basis for national ethical requirements, in January 1998 IFAC issued the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants. The Code includes standards of professional conduct for accountants, as well as fundamental principles that underlie the achievement of a set of common objectives to be met by accountants. The fundamental principles, which are described in detail in the Code, are similar to the Principles and Rules of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, as discussed at length in Chapter 3 of the main volume. The Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants is codified in AU Section 11,000 of AICPA Professional Standards.

In 1992, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) approved a

resolution to recognize the ISAs for use in multinational reporting. In recommending that the IOSCO membership take that step, key members of IOSCO's Technical Committee, which reviewed the standards, concluded that they "represent a comprehensive set of auditing

standards and that audits conducted in accordance with these standards could be relied upon by securities regulatory authorities for multinational reporting purposes." IOSCO has more than 100 members, including the U.S. SEC, although the SEC has not yet accepted the ISAs as a basis for reporting in the United States.

In August 1999, International Professional Practice Statement 1, Assuring the Quality of Professional Services, was issued by IFAC. The statement calls for accounting firms to establish quality control systems necessary to provide reasonable assurance of their conformity with professional standards in the performance of assurance services. The

statement replaced a statement of policy on assuring the quality of audit and related services. The new statement includes a requirement that a firm's quality control policies and procedures be subject to external review, either by a national professional body or by another firm. (c) Role of the SEC and the Courts

The various federal acts that the SEC administers give it broad powers. Those powers

probably include promulgating auditing standards and may extend even to prescribing specific steps to be followed by auditors of financial statements filed with the Commission. The