The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is getting a little more direct about where it is being denied the access necessary to complete international inspections—and resistance seems most pronounced in the European Union and China.
In an effort to be upfront about how far behind the international inspections are falling, the PCAOB said it conducted inspections in only 15 of the 27 countries where it planned to perform overseas inspections in 2009. “Access to information necessary to conduct inspections was, and continues to be, denied in China, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom,” the PCAOB said in a statement.
