In support of its commitment to increased transparency, the
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board recently released
Conversations with Audit Committee Chairs: What We Heard &
FAQs (the "Summary"), a summary of conversations that
the PCAOB had during 2019 with audit committee chairs of issuers
whose audits were inspected during the year. In a shift from prior
years, the PCAOB will have spoken to nearly 400 audit committee
chairs during 2019, a more than four-fold increase from 2018. The
PCAOB's conversations with audit committee chairs, which
focused on audit quality, the audit committee's relationship
with the auditor, new auditing and accounting standards, and
technology-driven changes, are described in the Summary. In
addition, the Summary provides basic overview information regarding
the 2019 inspections process and responses to frequently asked
audit committee questions, including questions about PCAOB
resources for audit committee, cost-benefit analyses of
