Listed companies must have their financial statements audited by an auditor. The audit engagement is awarded to the auditor by the listed company itself. At the same time, the auditor’s audit serves – in the words of the Supreme Court – a substantial public interest. The auditor therefore operates in an area of tension, where there may be conflicting interests between the auditor, the management board, the supervisory board, the shareholders and other stakeholders. In ’t Veld has examined this area of tension and the role of the auditor from historical, economic, legal-dogmatic and empirical perspectives.
It is concluded that the auditor’s role is ambivalent, in that, on the one hand, the auditor is expected to be independent and to maintain a distance from their client, whilst, on the other hand, they are becoming increasingly closely involved in the management and supervision of that client. The auditor’s involvement in the management and supervision of the listed company consists of the combination of their certifying, advisory and supervisory functions. The auditor is increasingly expressing this supervisory function publicly, for instance on issues such as going concern, fraud and legislation; this is driven by the inversely proportional relationship between the extent to which financial reporting meets users’ needs and the level of interest in the auditor’s supervisory function.
Lars in ՚t Veld studied corporate law and behavioural economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He subsequently worked at the same university as a research lecturer, during which time he was also seconded to the secretariat of the Monitoring Committee during the revision of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code in 2016. Since February 2017, he has been working at the Van der Heijden Institute, part of the Business & Law Research Centre at Radboud University. In addition, he worked at Stibbe until October 2023.
Since December 2023, Lars has been practising as a solicitor at CalcuLaw, a specialist law firm that advises and litigates in the fields of accountancy, reporting and governance. In addition, Lars is, amongst other things, a lecturer at Radboud University, a senior lecturer at the Law Firm School, an editor of the Tijdschrift voor Jaarrekeningenrecht (Journal of Financial Reporting Law), an editor of the Handboek Jaarrekeningrecht (Handbook of Financial Reporting Law), published in 2020, and a regular contributor to the journal Ondernemingsrecht (Corporate Law).