The 2023 Annual Report of the Belgian Audit Oversight Board (BAOB) is now available on its website.
The BAOB focuses on effective, risk-based and proportional oversight of audit quality and the integrity of the audit sector. The BAOB enforces the legal and regulatory framework by constantly examining whether auditors, who are expected to be beacons of ethics and independence, fulfil their mission correctly and knowledgeably. In so doing, the BAOB advances the public interest, which stands to benefit from honest and transparent financial markets in which users can have confidence in the financial and non-financial information provided.
As a supervisor of audit quality and of compliance with anti-money laundering legislation, the BAOB is tasked with serving the public interest tirelessly by continually improving the audit quality ecosystem, enhancing integrity and boosting the confidence of investors, credit providers and other stakeholders in the quality and reliability of the information audited by auditors. These efforts are all the more crucial in a fluctuating economic climate, with heightened geopolitical tensions and tough business, climate and organisational challenges.
The BAOB’s actions are chiefly preventive in nature, in cases where its supervision identifies inadequacies. This approach enables the audit profession to continue improving its methods.
The 2023 Annual Report describes how the BAOB exercises its role as an audit quality regulator. It also details its contribution to the quality practice of the auditing profession.