Question 1 – The annual report and independence (total 23 marks) Find the latest annual report of your company1 in (a) What is the name of the company and the company's financial year end? (1 mark) Information regarding audit committee and independence: (b) What is the size of the audit and risk committee? (1 mark) (c) Is the audit and risk committee independent? (1 mark) (d) Why does the ASX recommend audit committees be independent? (5 marks) (e) Does the non-audit service fee exceed 10% of the annual external audit engagement fee? (1 mark) (f) Does the audit committee discuss the auditor's provision of non-audit service? If yes, provide details of their discussion. (5 marks) (g) Explain the problems that are perceived to arise when non-audit service fees are high relative to audit engagement fees. (5 marks) Information regarding external auditor: (h) Which firm provided the external audit service? (1 mark) (i) Who signed the Auditor's Independence Declaration and Auditor's Report? (1 mark) (j) What date were the Auditor's Independence Declaration and Auditor's Report signed? (1 mark) (k) Which standards and regulations does the external auditor refer to in the Auditor's Report? (1 mark) 1 See appendix to find out which is your company. Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B Deakin Business School Faculty of Business and Law Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC 3125 Question 2 – Ethics and audit expectation-performance gap (total 16 marks) The Barings Bank was one of the world's oldest merchant bank and had problems with rogue trading in the middle of the 1990s. Nick Leeson was floor manager for trades in Singapore as well as head of settlement operations, thus he was able to settle his own trades, bypassing the bank's own internal controls. Whilst trading, Nick Leeson supposedly made $10 million profit in one week for the bank. This humongous profit caught the attention of other staff members in the bank. For instance, Mike Killian, who was the head of Global Futures and Options Sales, knew that the whole of Barings bank was making about GBP 200 million a year. If Nick Leeson carried on making such profit throughout the year it would be half a billion dollars a year profit! Accordingly to some sources Mike said that if Nick is doing that amount of business for that amount of profit, then they should shut down the rest of the bank because they were just overheads. Due to Nick's rogue trading the bank went bankrupt in 1995.2 (a) Mike Killian was cynical that one person alone was making more money than all the rest of Barings Bank staff. Questioning the reliability of information and being alert to conditions that may indicate possible fraud is an attitude expected from auditors. What is the name of this professional attitude and what is its use of it in the role of auditors? (4 marks) (b) Nick Leeson was floor manager for trades as well as head of settlement operations. This means that he was able to settle his own trades, bypassing the bank's own internal controls. Considering the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, which kind of threat to independence does this relate to? Describe this threat and suggest a safeguard to eliminate or reduce this threat. (6 marks) (c) Before going bankrupt in 1995 Barings bank had an unqualified audit report. What does that mean regarding audit expectation-performance gap? How does an unqualified audit report relate to the bank going bankrupt? (6 marks)