Auditors Challenge Regarding Going Concern: Going Concern in the Bank Sector

Abstract

Under and after the Financial crisis that began in 2007, many banks got in trouble in Denmark. Several banks merged with others or went bankrupt and were taken over by the national bankruptcy company Finansiel Stabilitet. These bankruptcies had a big impact on the Danish society and the public started questioning the external auditor’s work. Especially regarding the auditor´s assessment of and reporting on going concern in those companies, which went bankrupt with an unmodified audit opinion. In the time up to the Financial crisis, many banks experienced a big growth. This thesis is based on three cases of banks that have gone bankrupt as a consequence of the crisis. The issues in each of the cases has been presented and the banks been compared to healthy banks. The goal was to establish if there was a considerable deviation between a healthy bank and one that has gone bankrupt, to see if the auditor could have addressed those issues early on. Further there has been analyzed, what the auditor should and could do to address those issues that challenged those banks in the cases. The management responsibility is to assess whether there is a going concern matter at the bank. The auditor responsibility is to obtain audit evidence, that support the use of the management’s assessment of going concern, whether the managements assumption is appropriate regarding the company’s ability to run or subject to uncertainty and thereby, determine the implications of the audit report. In assessing the going concern assumption, the period of time must cover at least a 12 months period, from the date of the financial statement. Making an assessment of a company future can have some implication and can therefore imply a high grade of uncertainty. The auditor has to base his audit evidence on the management’s assessment, reports, accounting, forecasts etc., to obtain a high level of certainty. Even though the auditor contains audit evidence that can support his assessment of going concern, there can arise unexpected subsequent events that may result in an outcome that is not consistent with previous assessments from the management or auditor. The management´s and auditor´s going concern assessment are based on the information that they have at hand, when they made their final assessment, which is when they approve the financial statement. The future will always contain a level of uncertainty, the auditors assessment will therefore be at his best knowledge, that the accounts show a true view of the financial statement at the moment he signs it, supported by the audit evidence. This thesis point of view is from the external auditor and will mainly be based on his responsibility to comply with the ISA 570 standard, but the management responsibility will be addressed as well.