Readers of our submission to Treasury on their clawback discussion paper will have noted that we made a fuss that Treasury did not provide any evidence that there was a problem.

 

In particular we noted the Treasury paper as saying that financial misstatement was “not uncommon” based on ASIC information.

 

We asked ASIC for this information.  They did not respond prior to putting in our submission.  But they did today.

 

They indicated that the only ASIC source of public information on which the statement could be made was HERE

 

You have to read the whole paper.  But we can tell you that:

 

·          Information is gleaned from ASIC’s audit inspection program for 2008-09, covering 19 accounting firms and reviews of 88 audit and 7 review engagements

·          There are no figures or statistics for the extent of financial misstatement.

 

If this is the ASIC information that Treasury relied on, it is impossible to support the conclusion that financial misstatement is ‘not uncommon’.

© Guerdon Associates 2024 Back to all articles