The 8th EU Directive - No SOX for Europe
26/11/2007 12:03
PR Newswire
FRANKFURT, Germany, November 26 /PRNewswire/ --
- The Shaping of Controls Lies in Companies' Own Hands
The opportunity to discuss this and other topics relating to internal
auditing attracted more than 700 participants to the German Institute of
Internal Auditing (IIR) congress recently held in Cologne at which celebrity
speakers such as Jürgen Tiedje of the EU Commission shared their views and
some straight-talking answers.
"It's not as if the 8th EU Directive were a European variant of the
Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX). Europe is not going to experience a 'EURO-SOX' or
any kind of 'SOX light'." This was one such straight-talking answer from
Jürgen Tiedje. And he should know, since he is Head of Unit Auditing at the
European Commission in Brussels, the source of the 8th EU Directive. "On the
contrary, companies have full organisational liberty to arrange for
appropriate internal controls and especially for vigorous internal auditing."
This is a clear answer on the part of the Brussels commission to the central
question predominating the corporate governance debate regarding the details
of impending auditing legislation for companies resident in the European
member states. In his talk addressed to Germany's internal auditors at their
trade congress, Tiedje explained that the EU will not be emulating the United
States model of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, particularly in order to avoid what
is viewed by the Brussels authorities as an excessive bureaucratic upheaval,
but also in view of the diversity of corporate and business cultures that
exist.
Bernd Schartmann, honorary President of the German Institute of Internal
Auditing (IIR) and chairman of the congress, echoed the views of those
participating in the conference in welcoming this unambiguous clarification
of a question which had until that point still given rise to some uncertainty
as well as to certain vested-interest interpretations. These have now
effectively been removed.
Contact:
European Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditing
Koolstraat 47, bus 35
1000 Brussels
Belgium
E-mail: office@eciia.org
Web: http://www.eciia.org
or
Deutsches Institut für Interne Revision e.V.
Ohmstrasse 59
60486 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: +49-69-713769-0
Fax: +49-69-713769-69
E-mail: info@iir-ev.de
Contact: European Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditing, Koolstraat 47, bus 35, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, E-mail: office@eciia.org; or Deutsches Institut für Interne Revision e.V. Ohmstrasse 59, 60486 Frankfurt am Main, Tel.: +49-69-713769-0, Fax: +49-69-713769-69, E-mail: info@iir-ev.de