SEBI to bear peer-review costs of cos

CA Manish K Dhoot (CA, B. Com, NCFM, CPCM) (5015 Points)

16 May 2009  
Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairman C B Bhave  said the market regulator will bear the cost of peer review of the accounting statements of all Nifty and Sens*x companies to avoid a Satyam-like financial scandal. 



Mr Bhave said: “We realised that there might be a slight conflict of interest in the minds of investors if companies pay the peer review fees. So, we decided to pay for it. We will subsequently review how to fund this exercise.” 

Incidentally, the market regulator had decided to subject all Nifty and Sens*x companies to a peer review of their accounting statements as part of its confidence building measure. Some listed companies, not part of the Nifty and the Sens*x and chosen on a random basis, would also be reviewed.



“The whole process may take a bit longer than what we had estimated simply because we had to make sure that there is no conflict of interest between the auditing firm which was supposed to do the review vis-a-vis the audit firm which had audited the accounts, as well as the companies whose accounts has been audited. It was a kind of a triangular verification and that took a bit of a time,” Mr Bhave said