In March 2020, Covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Most European governments reacted with lockdowns. A drop in demand as well as supply disruptions affected the economy which also hit European banks with quite a lot of uncertainty, not only regarding possible...

In the past six years, the average number of industries (2-digit SIC) serviced by audit offices in the United States has grown by 20% and the number of industries where the office has specialization has fallen by 40% (Data Source: Audit Analytics). This suggests a trend away from specialization...

European Union adopted the Regulation (EU) No 537/2014, which in practice prohibits the joint provision of audit and most types of non-audit services (NAS). Regulators presume that NAS fees weaken auditor independence and, as a result, impair audit quality. As the evidence at the European level...

The European audit reform aims to stabilize financial markets by enhancing trust in the statutory audit. To strengthen auditor independence and to increase audit quality the provision of non-audit services to audit clients is further restricted. The supranational introduction of a blacklist,...