KPMG South Africa faces further crisis after the auditor general of South Africa (AGSA) announced it is to terminate, with immediate effect, all the firm’s public sector auditing contracts over concerns about potential reputational damage

The government has launched an independent root and branch review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), with the aim of putting the regulator and the UK at the forefront of corporate governance internationally

Harsher penalties for poor audit work and tougher monitoring by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is necessary given the current lack of confidence in the audit profession. Philip Smith talks to Melanie McLaren, FRC executive director of audit, about the tougher approach

KPMG South Africa has announced that two partners, Sipho Malaba and Dumi Tshuma, have resigned with immediate effect after disciplinary charges were brought against them, relating to failure to disclose relevant financial interests when working with a client, and says it will begin a major review of audit files

Prior to the global financial crisis, the issue of corporate governance was an unromantic fringe topic of little interest to all but the nerdiest technocrats in the already quite nerdish and technocratic area of economic policymaking and regulation. Now it is centre stage, says Luke Hildyard, policy lead on corporate governance at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association

The FRC is consulting on plans to increase registration and annual renewal fees for auditors of companies based outside of the EU, with full registration rising to £5,680 for auditors with more than three clients

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) is consulting on a revision to the rules for the external audit of public disclosure requirements under Solvency II, which would see certain smaller insurers excluded from the requirement

Continuous improvement in audit quality and corporate governance is essential if the UK is to attract investment post Brexit and shake off the legacy of questionable auditor behaviour, says Stephen Haddrill, chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC)

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is to tighten its monitoring of the six largest audit firms, which will include analysis of the skills and attributes of candidates for key roles such as independent non-executives, heads of audit and ethics partners

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) will implement the recommendations of the independent review of sanctions undertaken last year, which include introducing a fine of £10m or more for seriously poor work by a Big Four firm and greater use of non-financial penalties, as well as the possibility of ten-year bans for individuals

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has taken the unusual step of responding directly to comments made by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) in response to the recent corporate governance code consultation, which the regulator says contain ‘a number of inaccuracies and errors’ about its own governance and culture

Mandatory audit rotation hinders competition and creates barriers for mid-tier firms with fees hitting £300,000 for tenders, says Robert Hannah, chief operating officer at Grant Thornton, as the firms pulls out of bidding for FTSE 350 audits in the future, reports Amy Austin

Mid-tier firm Grant Thornton UK has made a strategic move away from tendering for statutory audit work in the FTSE 350, citing the difficulty of taking on the Big Four’s dominance in this area

This article, the last in our series on the Companies Act 2006, will focus on the auditor’s remuneration, including what details on audit remuneration companies must include in their accounts and how the fee is decided