Accountant banned for signing audit reports
An accountant has been excluded from the ICAEW and fined nearly £15,000 for issuing audit reports on behalf of his firms when they were not registered to carry out audit work.
Robert Binfield, from Chester, issued reports for companies on behalf of firms, the Lanson Partnership and Pryor & Company between 2007 and 2012, according to this month’s ICAEW disciplinaries.
Pryor & Company had not been audit registered since 2005 and ceased trading in March 2008. However Binfield continued signing audit reports for two years after he told ICAEW it had closed.
In addition, between 2010 and 2012 he signed reports on behalf of the Lanson Partnership, which was not listed as a connected entity to him and was not audit registered. It is now, according to ICAEW records, dissolved.
An anonymous call tipped the Institute off that Binfield had been signing audit reports as a senior statutory auditor on behalf of the Lanson Partnership.
A search revealed that Binfield had signed audit reports for two companies. It was also discovered he had provided audit and accountancy services through his firm Pryor and Company. But in 2005 his firm’s audit registration was withdrawn at his request.
The ICAEW tried to contact Binfield in 2013 on various occasions and while receiving one response didn’t receive adequate information.
The complaint reached ICAEW’s disciplinary tribunal and was found proven on his own admission.
In sentencing, the tribunal said: “It was of critical importance that chartered accountants that did not have audit registration did not act as if they did. The regulatory requirements underpinning audit registration were the guarantee to the public of the demanding professional requirements made of registered auditors.”
“Without this guarantee, the function of audit was fundamentally undermined.”
Source: accountingweb
