Article 16 Auditing compliance with Article 37 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on independent audit

This article deals with the temporal and organisational scope of compliance assessments concerning the auditing obligations themselves.

It establishes that when auditors assess whether an audited provider has met its auditing-related obligations, they look back at the prior yearly audit period rather than the current one.

There is, however, a carve-out for one specific obligation — relating to the provider's cooperation duties in the current audit — which is assessed in real time.

The article also addresses a conflict of interest concern, requiring transparency from auditing organisations that share continuity with a previous audit.

Important points:

• Compliance with auditing obligations is assessed against the yearly period preceding the current audit, not the current audit period itself.
• Assess your cooperation obligations under Article 37(2) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 in relation to the current audit, as this runs in parallel to the lookback assessment.
• Where there is organisational continuity between the current and previous auditing organisation, the auditing organisation is required to explain in the audit report the steps taken to ensure objectivity.