The First Chamber of the Dutch Parliament adopted a bill on the accountancy profession on 11 December 2012. Most provisions of the bill entered into effect on 1 January 2013. The bill as adopted will bring significant changes to the accountancy profession in the Netherlands. These include:
- Compulsory rotation of accountancy firms.
Accountancy firms may provide statutory audit services to public interest organisations for no more than eight consecutive years. After this, they will have to observe a two-year cooling off period before resuming statutory audit services. These new compulsory rotation rules will not come into force until 1 January 2016. - A requirement for audit firms to separate audit and advisory
services.
This means that accountancy firms may no longer provide both audit and advisory services to public interest organisations. - A requirement for public interest organisations to give prior notification to the AFM of their intention to appoint an accountancy firm to perform audits.
Click here to read more information about these developments in Regulatory & Criminal Enforcement
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