PCAOB Posts Conversations with Audit Committee Chairs: COVID-19 and the Audit

As part of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) strategic goal of enhancing transparency and accessibility through proactive stakeholder engagement, the Board has committed to engaging more directly and more often with audit committees. In 2019, we reached out to nearly 400 audit committee chairs of U.S. issuers whose audits we inspected and offered them the opportunity to speak with us.

We have continued this outreach to audit committee chairs during our 2020 inspections. Given the unprecedented challenges for auditors, audit committees, and issuers created by the COVID-19 pandemic, we asked audit committee chairs how they are thinking about the effect of COVID-19 on financial reporting and the audit as they perform their oversight duties.

Today, in an effort to provide transparency into that process and as part of the reporting out of what we heard, PCAOB staff released a new resource for audit committees, Conversations with Audit Committee Chairs: COVID-19 and the Audit.

Please contact the PCAOB's Stakeholder Liaison, Erin Dwyer, if you have any feedback on this resource or if you would like to engage further with us. 

NOTE: This document represents the views of PCAOB staff and not necessarily those of the Board. It is not a rule, policy, or statement of the Board. The PCAOB does not set standards for, or provide authoritative guidance on, audit committee conduct.

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About the PCAOB

The PCAOB is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies in order to protect investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports. The PCAOB also oversees the audits of brokers and dealers, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws.