Notes

How to look up an auditor's inspection and enforcement history

Regulators publish inspection reports, enforcement outcomes and, in the US, data on who audited each public company. These pages are the primary record.

• The PCAOB's AuditorSearch database shows the engagement partner and other participating audit firms on audits of US public companies, using Form AP filings. It can be searched by issuer, firm or partner and downloaded in full.¹
• The PCAOB firm inspection reports page states how often firms are inspected, annually for firms issuing audit reports for more than 100 issuers and, in general, at least once every three years for those issuing 100 or fewer.²
• The PCAOB enforcement pages publish settled orders, final Board actions in litigated cases and related SEC and court review actions.³
• The FRC enforcement cases page lists publicly announced current and past cases, with dated milestones such as sanctions imposed, investigations commenced and investigations closed.⁴
• The FRC's Audit Quality Review team monitors the quality of audit work by UK firms that carry out statutory audits of public interest entities and certain other entities, and lists the audits subject to inspection by inspection period.⁵

Sources

1. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, AuditorSearch
2. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Firm inspection reports
3. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Enforcement
4. Financial Reporting Council, Enforcement cases
5. Financial Reporting Council, Audit Quality Review