Ordinance
on the Licensing and Oversight of Auditors
(Auditor Oversight Ordinance, AOO)

¹ A li­cence ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted to the Over­sight Au­thor­ity by:

a.

any in­di­vidu­al who wishes to provide audit ser­vices as an aud­it­or or audit ex­pert;

b.

any audit firm that wishes to provide audit ser­vices as an aud­it­or, audit ex­pert or audit firm un­der state over­sight;

c.⁷

any in­di­vidu­al who based on a li­cence in ac­cord­ance with let­ter a wishes to per­form audits un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts as a lead aud­it­or in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 1 para­graph 1 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vi­sion Act of 22 June 2007⁸ (fin­an­cial mar­ket acts) (Art. 9a para. 2 AOA);

d.⁹

any audit firm which based on the li­cence in ac­cord­ance with let­ter b wishes to per­form audits un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts as an audit com­pany (Art. 9a para. 1 AOA);

e.¹⁰

any in­di­vidu­al who, based on a li­cence in ac­cord­ance with let­ter a, wishes to per­form audits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 68 and 68a of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1946¹¹ on Old-Age and Sur­viv­ors’ In­sur­ance (OASIA) as a lead aud­it­or;

f.¹²

any audit firm which, based on the li­cence in ac­cord­ance with let­ter b, wishes to per­form audits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 68 and 68a OASIA as an audit com­pany.

² The ap­plic­ant must sub­mit evid­ence of pay­ment of the fee in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 38 with the ap­plic­a­tion.

¹ The li­cence ap­plic­a­tion shall be sub­mit­ted in elec­tron­ic form and on pa­per. It must be signed. If the ap­plic­a­tion does not bear a qual­i­fied elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act on Elec­tron­ic Sig­na­tures of 18 March 2016¹⁴, an ap­prov­al re­ceipt must be signed by hand and handed in on pa­per.

² If the elec­tron­ic sub­mis­sion of the ap­plic­a­tion is not pos­sible, the ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted on pa­per. It must be signed by hand.

¹ In the ap­plic­a­tion the ap­plic­ant must provide all the de­tails and name all the doc­u­ments from which it can be es­tab­lished that the li­cens­ing re­quire­ments have been sat­is­fied.

² The doc­u­ments shall only be sub­mit­ted on the re­quest of the Over­sight Au­thor­ity.

³ The doc­u­ments shall be sub­mit­ted in the form of cop­ies of the ori­gin­als. The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may re­quest the sub­mis­sion of the ori­gin­al doc­u­ment or a cer­ti­fied copy on pa­per or in elec­tron­ic form.

⁴ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may col­lect doc­u­ments it­self if it has ob­tained the ap­plic­ant’s pri­or con­sent.

¹ The ap­plic­ant shall be li­censed if he or she is of good re­pute and no oth­er per­son­al cir­cum­stances sug­gest that he or she does not as­sure the prop­er con­duct of audit­ing activ­it­ies.

² The fol­low­ing shall be taken in­to ac­count in par­tic­u­lar:

a.¹⁵

crim­in­al con­vic­tions;

b.

ex­ist­ing loss cer­ti­fic­ates.

Un­der­gradu­ate de­grees (bach­el­or’s de­gree) with 180 cred­its or the gradu­ate de­grees (mas­ter’s de­gree) with an ad­di­tion­al 90 to 120 cred­its in ac­cord­ance with the European Cred­it Trans­fer Sys­tem (ECTS) shall be con­sidered de­grees from a uni­versity or uni­versity of ap­plied sci­ences (Art. 4 para. 2 let. c AOA).

The ne­ces­sary know­ledge of Swiss law shall have been demon­strated if the ap­plic­ant has suc­cess­fully passed an ex­am­in­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with ex­am reg­u­la­tions re­cog­nised by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity (Art. 34).

¹ Pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence is deemed to be ac­quired primar­ily in the area of ac­count­ing and fin­an­cial state­ment audit­ing (Art. 4 para. 4 and Art. 5 para. 2 AOA) if at least three quar­ters of an ap­plic­ant’s pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence has been ac­quired in those two fields.

² In the case of li­cens­ing as an audit ex­pert, ex­per­i­ence in fin­an­cial state­ment audit­ing (FSA) must ac­count for at least one third of total pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1. At least one third of ex­per­i­ence in fin­an­cial state­ment audit­ing is to be gained in the area of or­din­ary audits.

³ In the case of li­cens­ing as an aud­it­or, ex­per­i­ence in fin­an­cial state­ment audit­ing must ac­count for at least one half of total pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.

⁴ Pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence shall be deemed to have been ac­quired un­der over­sight (Art. 4 para. 4 and Art. 5 para. 2 AOA) if:

the ap­plic­ant was form­ally sub­or­din­ate to a spe­cial­ist who sat­is­fies the leg­al re­quire­ments and was bound by in­struc­tions when he or she car­ried out the activ­ity in ques­tion;

The su­per­vi­sion has been car­ried out to at least the ex­tent of 50 per cent of a full-time po­s­i­tion and for at least three months without sig­ni­fic­ant in­ter­rup­tions; in the case of su­per­vi­sion by the same per­son for more than two years, 20 per cent of a full-time po­s­i­tion is suf­fi­cient.

¹ In­di­vidu­als may only provide audit ser­vices in­de­pend­ently if:

a.

they are entered in the com­mer­cial re­gister as sole pro­pri­et­or­ships; and

b.

they and their sole pro­pri­et­or­ship are li­censed ac­cord­ingly by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity.¹⁹

² Audit firms whose re­gistered of­fice is out­side Switzer­land may only per­form audit ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Swiss law if they have a re­gistered branch of­fice in Switzer­land.

¹ An audit firm has a man­age­ment struc­ture that is suf­fi­cient to su­per­vise the in­di­vidu­al as­sign­ments if it:

a.

has an in­tern­al qual­ity con­trol sys­tem;

b.

su­per­vises the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness and ef­fect­ive­ness of the qual­ity con­trol prin­ciples and meas­ures.

² ...²⁰

¹ Audit firms dom­i­ciled abroad shall be li­censed as audit firms un­der state over­sight if:

a.

they meet the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 9 AOA or equi­val­ent re­quire­ments; and

b.

they guar­an­tee the ful­fil­ment of the du­ties to in­form and no­ti­fy and grant ac­cess to the Swiss Over­sight Au­thor­ity.

² For­eign audit firms provid­ing audit­ing ser­vices for Swiss pub­lic in­terest en­tit­ies un­der Swiss law are sub­ject to Swiss over­sight.

³ For­eign audit firms that are sub­ject to over­sight or opt for over­sight in their coun­try of dom­i­cile by a for­eign over­sight au­thor­ity re­cog­nised by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil are not re­quired to be li­censed in Switzer­land as audit firms un­der state over­sight.²²

⁴ If it is pos­sible that an audit firm will be­come sub­ject to over­sight sub­sequent to li­cens­ing in Switzer­land, it must no­ti­fy the Swiss Over­sight Au­thor­ity ac­cord­ingly. The Swiss Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall al­low the audit firm a reas­on­able peri­od of time in which to ob­tain a li­cence in its coun­try of dom­i­cile.²³

¹The re­cog­ni­tion of equi­val­ent for­eign over­sight au­thor­it­ies may be based on the re­cog­ni­tion by oth­er states or in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies as well as on the grant­ing of re­cip­roc­al rights.

²The for­eign over­sight au­thor­it­ies re­cog­nised in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 AOA are lis­ted in An­nex 2.

³The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may co­oper­ate with the re­cog­nised for­eign over­sight au­thor­ity for com­pel­ling reas­ons even if the li­cens­ing duty un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 AOA no longer ap­plies to the for­eign audit firm.

¹ An audit firm un­der state over­sight shall be suf­fi­ciently in­sured against li­ab­il­ity risks if it has taken out in­sur­ance against eco­nom­ic loss or has equi­val­ent fin­an­cial se­cur­ity to cov­er its li­ab­il­ity arising from the audit­ing of pub­lic com­pan­ies.

² The in­sured sum that is avail­able to cov­er all claims made with­in a year must amount to at least:

a.

5 mil­lion francs in the case of audit fees in ex­cess of 20 mil­lion francs;

b.

2 mil­lion francs in the case of audit fees of between 10 and 20 mil­lion francs;

c.

1 mil­lion francs in all oth­er cases.

³ The basis for de­term­in­ing the level of the audit fees shall be all the audit fees that the audit firm un­der state over­sight has pos­ted for audit ser­vices to pub­lic com­pan­ies in its most re­cently ap­proved an­nu­al fin­an­cial state­ments.

⁴ Para­graph 2 let­ter c ap­plies to audit firms un­der state over­sight that do not post any audit fees from pub­lic com­pan­ies.

⁵ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may in­crease the in­sured sum in in­di­vidu­al cases if it is not com­men­sur­ate with the busi­ness activ­ity and as­so­ci­ated risks and with the risk man­age­ment car­ried out.

⁶ It shall de­cide in in­di­vidu­al cases which forms of fin­an­cial se­cur­ity shall be deemed to be equi­val­ent in the sense of para­graph 1.

⁷ The audit firm un­der state over­sight must in­form the Over­sight Au­thor­ity without delay of any change to the in­sur­ance con­tract. This shall also ap­ply by ana­logy to equi­val­ent forms of fin­an­cial se­cur­ity.

¹ The ap­plic­ant may only provide audit ser­vices once the Over­sight Au­thor­ity has taken the de­cision to grant the li­cence.

² The li­cence to op­er­ate as an audit firm un­der state over­sight and as an audit ex­pert shall at the same time cov­er the li­cence to provide audit ser­vices, for which fed­er­al law pre­scribes less strin­gent pro­fes­sion­al re­quire­ments.

^2bis The li­cence of an audit firm or a lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audit which has been gran­ted for a spe­cif­ic over­sight area does not cov­er audit­ing un­der Art­icle 24 para­graph 1 let­ter a of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Audit­ing Act of 22 June 2007²⁷ in an­oth­er over­sight area.²⁸

^2ter The li­cence gran­ted for audit­ing in an over­sight area in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11a para­graph 1 let­ters a–c also cov­ers audit­ing com­pli­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Act of 10 Oc­to­ber 1997²⁹ and the Fed­er­al Act on Fin­an­cial Ser­vices of 15 June 2018³⁰ in the over­sight area con­cerned.³¹

³ Be­fore the de­cision to grant the li­cence is taken, titles such as «li­censed aud­it­or», «li­censed audit ex­pert», «li­censed lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits», «li­censed audit firm», «audit firm un­der state over­sight» or «li­censed audit com­pany for reg­u­lat­ory audits» may not be used.³²

In­di­vidu­als and firms who may be sub­ject to the AOA on the basis of their com­mer­cial re­gister entry, busi­ness activ­ity or busi­ness ad­vert­ising may be asked by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity to sup­ply all the doc­u­ments and in­form­a­tion that the lat­ter needs to as­sess wheth­er they are un­der­tak­ing an activ­ity that re­quires a li­cence.

If the Over­sight Au­thor­ity with­draws the li­cence from an in­di­vidu­al or an audit firm for a lim­ited or un­lim­ited peri­od, it shall in­form the com­pet­ent com­mer­cial re­gister of­fices, the stock ex­change (if ap­plic­able) and the over­sight au­thor­it­ies that, ac­cord­ing to the entry in the re­gister of aud­it­ors, have gran­ted a li­cence in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall grant li­cences to audit firms un­der state over­sight and to lead aud­it­ors for audits un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts for the fol­low­ing over­sight areas:

a.³⁸

banks in ac­cord­ance with the Bank­ing Act of 8 Novem­ber 1934³⁹ (BankA), fin­an­cial mar­ket in­fra­struc­tures, fin­an­cial groups and pub­lic takeover of­fers in ac­cord­ance with the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015⁴⁰, se­cur­it­ies firms in ac­cord­ance with the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁴¹ (Fin­IA) and mort­gage bond clear­ing houses in ac­cord­ance with the Mort­gage Bond Act of 25 June 1930⁴²;

a.^bis43

per­sons in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 1b BankA;

b.

in­sur­ance com­pan­ies in ac­cord­ance with the In­sur­ance Su­per­vi­sion Act of 17 Decem­ber 2004⁴⁴;

c.⁴⁵

fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies and man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets in ac­cord­ance with Fin­IA, in­vest­ment funds, in­vest­ment com­pan­ies with vari­able cap­it­al (SICAV), lim­ited li­ab­il­ity com­pan­ies for col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ments, in­vest­ment com­pan­ies with fixed cap­it­al (SI­CAF), de­pos­it­ory banks and rep­res­ent­at­ives of for­eign col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ments in ac­cord­ance with the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006⁴⁶;

d.⁴⁷

...

² ...⁴⁸

¹ An audit firm is suf­fi­ciently or­gan­ised for the audits un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts (Art. 9a para. 1 let. b AOA) if:

a.

it has at least two li­censed lead aud­it­ors for the over­sight area in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11a for which the li­cence is gran­ted;

b.

after three years at the latest it has at least two audit man­dates in the over­sight area in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11a for which the li­cence is gran­ted;

c.

it com­plies with the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion and safe­keep­ing of doc­u­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 730c CO re­gard­less of its leg­al form.

² The audit man­dates in the over­sight areas in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11a para­graph 1 let­ters a and c are coun­ted to­wards the over­sight area in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11a para­graph 1 let­ter a^bis.⁵⁰

The ex­er­cise by the fol­low­ing per­sons of an activ­ity re­quir­ing per­mis­sion in ac­cord­ance with the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts (Art. 9a para­graph 1 let­ter c AOA) is not com­pat­ible with a li­cence as an audit com­pany for reg­u­lat­ory audits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 let­ter a num­ber 2 AOA:

a.

com­pan­ies with the same man­age­ment as the audit com­pany for reg­u­lat­ory audits;

b.

in­di­vidu­als dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly hold­ing at least 10 per cent of the cap­it­al or the votes in a com­pany in ac­cord­ance with let­ter a or who can con­sid­er­ably in­flu­ence the com­pany’s busi­ness activ­ity in an­oth­er way;

c.⁵²

the lead aud­it­ors.

¹ The lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits is deemed to have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for the li­cence for the audit­ing of banks, stock ex­changes, se­cur­it­ies brokers, se­cur­it­ies firms and mort­gage bond clear­ing houses (Art. 11a para. 1 let. a) if she or he can provide evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:⁵⁵

a.

eight years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence provid­ing audit­ing ser­vices (Art. 2 let. a AOA) ac­quired in Switzer­land or in a com­par­able way abroad;

b.

1500 audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle;

c.

24 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the over­sight area of this Art­icle no more than one year pri­or to sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion.

² After li­cens­ing, the lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits is deemed to have main­tained the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for audit­ing un­der this Art­icle if she or he provides evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.⁵⁶

400 audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle in the last six years re­spect­ively;

b.

24 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing per year in the over­sight area of this Art­icle.

¹ The lead aud­it­or is deemed to have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise in and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence of li­cen­cing for audits of per­sons in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 1b BankA⁵⁸ if he or she provides evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.

eight years pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence in audit ser­vices (Art. 2 let. a AOA), ob­tained in Switzer­land or in a com­par­able fash­ion abroad;

b.

800 audit hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle;

c.

16 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the over­sight area of this Art­icle with­in one year ahead of sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion.

² After the li­cence has been gran­ted, she or he is deemed to con­tin­ue to pos­sess the re­quis­ite ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence to audit un­der this Art­icle if she or he provides evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.⁵⁹

100 audit hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle in each of the past six years;

b.

16 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing per year in the over­sight area of this Art­icle.

³ Lead aud­it­ors may count pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence and audit­ing hours in the over­sight areas in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11a para­graph 1 let­ters a and c for the pur­pose of li­cens­ing or re­ten­tion un­der para­graphs 1 and 2 re­spect­ively.⁶⁰

⁴ They may count a max­im­um of eight hours con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing un­der­taken in the over­sight areas un­der Art­icle 11a para­graph 1 let­ters a and c.⁶¹

¹ The lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits is deemed to have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for the li­cence for the audit­ing of in­sur­ance com­pan­ies (Art. 11a let­ter b) if she or he can provide evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.

eight years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence provid­ing audit­ing ser­vices (Art. 2 let. a AOA) ac­quired in Switzer­land or in a com­par­able way abroad;

b.

400 audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle;

c.

16 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the over­sight area of this Art­icle no more than one year pri­or to sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion.

² After li­cens­ing, the lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits shall be deemed to con­tin­ue to have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for audit­ing un­der this Art­icle if she or he provides evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.⁶³

100 audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle in the last six years;

b.

16 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing per year in the over­sight area of this Art­icle.

¹ The lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits has the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for the li­cence for the audit­ing of fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies, in­vest­ment funds, SICAV, lim­ited part­ner­ships for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes, SI­CAF, De­pos­it­ory Banks, man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets, as­set man­agers of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes as well as rep­res­ent­at­ives of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes (Art. 11a para. 1 let. c) if she or he can provide evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:⁶⁶

a.

eight years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence provid­ing audit­ing ser­vices (Art. 2 let. a AOA) ac­quired in Switzer­land or in a com­par­able way abroad;

b.

800 audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle;

c.

16 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the over­sight area of this Art­icle no more than one year pri­or to sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion.

² After li­cens­ing, the lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits is deemed to con­tin­ue to have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for audit­ing un­der this Art­icle if she or he provides evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.⁶⁷

100 audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle in the last six years;

b.

16 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing per year in the over­sight area of this Art­icle.

³ Audit­ing hours with cus­todi­an banks shall be con­sidered audit­ing hours in the over­sight area of this Art­icle.

¹ Con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing courses in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 11d-11f, in­clud­ing courses us­ing new in­form­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies and cor­res­pond­ence courses, must meet at least the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia:⁷⁰

a.

The con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in­clude the audit fields for each over­sight area defined by Art­icle 3 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Audit­ing Or­din­ance of 5 Novem­ber 2014⁷¹ (FMAO-FINMA).

b.

Ex­tern­al and in­tern­al con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing events last at least one hour.

c.

At least three per­sons must par­ti­cip­ate in in­tern­al con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing events.

d.⁷²

A learn­ing as­sess­ment is car­ried out in the case of asyn­chron­ous vir­tu­al events.

² The ac­tu­al dur­a­tion of the con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing event shall be cred­ited. Spe­cial­ised lec­tures and spe­cial­ised train­ing shall be cred­ited as double the lec­ture or class dur­a­tion.

³ Self-study is not deemed to be con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing.

The reg­u­la­tions on in­de­pend­ence (Art. 11 AOA and Art. 728 CO) shall be ap­plied to the audit un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, tak­ing ac­count of the reg­u­lat­ory audit pur­pose.

The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall grant li­cences to audit firms and to lead aud­it­ors for the audits un­der Art­icles 68 and 68a OASIA⁷⁶ provided they meet the re­quire­ments of Art­icles 11n–11p.

An audit firm is suf­fi­ciently or­gan­ised for the audits un­der OASIA⁷⁷ if it:

a.

it has at least two lead aud­it­ors who hold a li­cence un­der Art­icle 11m;

b.

after three years at the latest from when the li­cence is gran­ted, it has at least two audit man­dates from OASI of­fices or branch of­fices in terms of Art­icle 161 para­graphs 1 and 2 of the Or­din­ance of 31 Oc­to­ber 1947⁷⁸ on Old-Age and Sur­viv­ors’ In­sur­ance;

c.

it com­plies with the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion and safe­keep­ing of doc­u­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 730c CO re­gard­less of its leg­al form.

¹ The lead aud­it­or is deemed to have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for the li­cence for audit­ing OASI of­fices and branch of­fice if he or she can provide evid­ence of the fol­low­ing:

a.

250 audit­ing hours in prin­cip­al audits with­in the six years pri­or to sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion;

b.

200 audit­ing hours in fin­an­cial state­ment audits with­in the six years pri­or to sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion; and

c.

12 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the field of activ­ity of Art­icle 68a para­graph 2 let­ters a, b and e OASIA⁷⁹ with­in the three years pri­or to sub­mit­ting the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion.

² After be­ing gran­ted the li­cence, the lead aud­it­or shall be deemed to con­tin­ue to have the re­quired ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence in audit­ing if he or she provides evid­ence of the fol­low­ing for the last three years:

a.

an av­er­age of 40 audit­ing hours in prin­cip­al audits and 30 audit­ing hours in fin­an­cial state­ment audits; and

b.

a total of 12 hours of con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the field of activ­ity of Art­icle 68a para­graph 2 let­ters a, b and e OASIA.

Art­icle 11h para­graphs 1 let­ters b–d and 2 and 3 ap­ply to con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing re­lat­ing to the tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 68a para­graph 2 let­ters a, b and e OASIA.

¹ If a li­censed in­di­vidu­al or a li­censed audit firm no longer meets the li­cens­ing re­quire­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 11n–11p, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity may with­draw the li­cence for a lim­ited or un­lim­ited peri­od.

² Provided the li­cens­ing re­quire­ments can be met again, ad­vance warn­ing shall be giv­en of with­draw­al.

³ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity is­sues a writ­ten rep­rim­and if with­draw­al of the li­cence would be dis­pro­por­tion­ate.

¹ …⁸¹

² …⁸²

¹ The re­gister shall be kept elec­tron­ic­ally.

² It shall be pos­sible for the con­tent to be made vis­ible at any time elec­tron­ic­ally and in the form of a pa­per print-out.

³ It shall be pos­sible to re­trieve the data us­ing search cri­ter­ia.

¹ The entries in the re­gister shall be pub­lic and ac­cess­ible free of charge on the In­ter­net.

² On re­quest, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall cer­ti­fy in writ­ing that an in­di­vidu­al or firm is li­censed and entered in the re­gister. It shall charge a fee of 50 francs for such cer­ti­fic­a­tion.

³ The li­cence ap­plic­a­tion, the cor­res­pond­ence con­nec­ted with the li­cence, the doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted and the de­cision on the grant­ing of the li­cence shall not be pub­lic.

¹ An entry re­lat­ing to in­di­vidu­als shall con­tain the fol­low­ing de­tails:

a.

per­son­al re­gister num­ber;

b.

sur­name and first name;

c.

place of ori­gin;

d.

date of li­cence;

e.

type of li­cence;

f.

if ap­plic­able, a ref­er­ence to a pro­vi­sion­al li­cence;

g.⁸⁶

if ap­plic­able, the func­tion of the per­son and the com­pany name or name in ac­cord­ance with the com­mer­cial re­gister, ad­dress and unique busi­ness iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber of the audit firm:

1.

of which the per­son is the own­er or part­ner,

2.

in which highest man­age­ment or ad­min­is­trat­ive body or in whose gov­ern­ing body the per­son sits,

3.

by which the per­son is em­ployed, or

4.

with which the per­son is con­nec­ted in a sim­il­ar form as un­der Num­ber 3;

h.

if ap­plic­able, a ref­er­ence to mem­ber­ship of a pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­ation;

i.

if ap­plic­able, li­cences in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion in the Swiss audit­ing sec­tor, in­clud­ing the name and ad­dress of the li­cens­ing au­thor­ity;

j.⁸⁷

if ap­plic­able, a note to the ef­fect that the in­di­vidu­al is in­act­ive.

² Li­censed in­di­vidu­als are deemed to be in­act­ive if they are not per­form­ing any of the func­tions spe­cified in para­graph 1 let­ter g, as in­dic­ated in the re­gister.⁸⁸

The entry re­lat­ing to audit firms shall con­tain the fol­low­ing de­tails:

a.⁸⁹

com­pany iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber;

b.

com­pany name or name and leg­al form in ac­cord­ance with the entry in the com­mer­cial re­gister;

c.⁹⁰

ad­dress and re­gistered of­fice, and de­tails of the headquar­ters in the case of branch of­fices of audit firms based abroad;

d.

date of li­cence;

e.

type of li­cence;

f.

if ap­plic­able, a ref­er­ence to a pro­vi­sion­al li­cence;

f.^bis91

the set of rules un­der which the in­tern­al qual­ity con­trol sys­tem is op­er­ated;

f.^ter92

the type of ex­tern­al qual­ity con­trol or, if none is op­er­ated, a note to that ef­fect;

g.⁹³

the com­pany iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber, ad­dress and re­gistered of­fice of all branch of­fices in Switzer­land re­gistered in the com­mer­cial re­gister;

g.^bis94if ap­plic­able, in­form­a­tion to en­sure entry trace­ab­il­ity, in par­tic­u­lar in re­struc­tur­ing cases;

h.

if ap­plic­able, a ref­er­ence to mem­ber­ship of a pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­ation;

i.

if ap­plic­able, li­cences in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion in the Swiss audit­ing sec­tor, in­clud­ing the name and ad­dress of the li­cens­ing au­thor­ity;

j.⁹⁵

...

¹ When de­term­in­ing and as­sess­ing the re­quire­ments for li­cences in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion, the oth­er over­sight au­thor­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 22 AOA shall take the li­cences is­sued by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity in­to ac­count. If the Over­sight Au­thor­ity with­draws a li­cence, the oth­er over­sight au­thor­it­ies shall also with­draw the li­cence in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion.

² The oth­er over­sight au­thor­it­ies shall enter, modi­fy and de­lete li­cences in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion of per­sons and com­pan­ies dir­ectly by elec­tron­ic means in the re­gister of the Over­sight Au­thor­ity. The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall reg­u­late the de­tails of this ac­cess in an or­din­ance.

³ The oth­er over­sight au­thor­it­ies and the Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall in­form each oth­er of the with­draw­al of a li­cence for a lim­ited or un­lim­ited peri­od and of any oth­er change to a li­cence.

¹ Two audit firms may re­quest the Over­sight Au­thor­ity to trans­fer the li­cence of one audit firm to the oth­er.

² The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall trans­fer the li­cence if:

a.

the li­cence trans­fer is based on a trans­fer of the re­lated busi­ness activ­ity; and

b.

the com­pany tak­ing over the li­cence meets its re­quire­ments.

³ An in­di­vidu­al’s li­cence may not be trans­ferred.

The entry re­lat­ing to a li­cence shall be de­leted from the re­gister by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity if:

a.

the li­censed in­di­vidu­al has died;

b.

the li­censed firm has been dis­solved and de­leted from the com­mer­cial re­gister;

c.

the li­cence has been with­drawn from an in­di­vidu­al or firm for a lim­ited or un­lim­ited peri­od;

d.

the li­censed in­di­vidu­al or the li­censed firm ap­plies for such de­le­tion;

e.⁹⁸

the audit firm’s li­cence has ex­pired.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall ini­ti­ate ex of­fi­cio the pro­ced­ure to cor­rect the entry in the re­gister if the entry does not or no longer cor­res­ponds to the facts or leg­al situ­ation and the per­sons or audit firms with the duty to no­ti­fy (Art. 15 para. 3 AOA) do not make the cor­rec­tion or re­port it them­selves.

² For this pur­pose, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall re­quest the per­sons or audit firms with the duty to no­ti­fy to cor­rect the re­gister with­in 30 days or to prove that no cor­rec­tion is re­quired.

³ If the Over­sight Au­thor­ity is un­able to con­tact the per­sons or audit firms with the duty to no­ti­fy, it shall pub­lish the re­quest in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette.

⁴ If the per­sons or audit firms sub­ject to the duty do not ar­range for the cor­rec­tion them­selves, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall or­der the cor­rec­tion in a rul­ing.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall store the re­cords for each per­son and each com­pany sep­ar­ately and in chro­no­lo­gic­al or­der.

² A per­son’s or com­pany’s re­cords shall be stored for 20 years from the last ad­di­tion. If a per­son or a com­pany is de­leted from the re­gister, the re­cords may be des­troyed ten years fol­low­ing de­le­tion. This does not ap­ply if a com­pany is de­leted due to mer­ger, de­mer­ger or oth­er re­struc­tur­ing cir­cum­stances.

³ Once the safe­keep­ing peri­od has elapsed, the re­cords shall be offered to the Fed­er­al Archives for archiv­ing. Re­cords that the Fed­er­al Archives do not con­sider to be worthy of archiv­ing shall be des­troyed.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may re­cord and store the re­cords elec­tron­ic­ally.

² If re­cords are re­cor­ded and stored elec­tron­ic­ally, the pa­per ver­sion of these re­cords may be des­troyed. Ori­gin­al doc­u­ments shall be re­turned to the sender.

¹ The elec­tron­ic sys­tems for the re­gister and for the stor­age of re­cords must sat­is­fy the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments:

a.

The ex­ist­ence and qual­ity of the re­cor­ded data shall be main­tained over the long term.

b.

The format of the data shall be in­de­pend­ent from the man­u­fac­turer of cer­tain elec­tron­ic sys­tems.

c.

The data shall be backed up in ac­cord­ance with re­cog­nised stand­ards and state-of-the-art tech­no­logy.

d.

Doc­u­ment­a­tion on the pro­gram and the format shall be avail­able.

² The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall reg­u­late au­thor­isa­tion to ac­cess the data and the elec­tron­ic sys­tems in an Or­din­ance.

³ It shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions on:

a.

the peri­od­ic back­ing-up of data on de­cent­ral­ised data car­ri­ers;

b.

the main­ten­ance of the data and elec­tron­ic sys­tems;

c.

the pro­tec­tion of the data and elec­tron­ic sys­tems against mis­use;

d.

the meas­ures to be taken in the event of tech­nic­al faults af­fect­ing the elec­tron­ic sys­tems.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity and the oth­er over­sight au­thor­it­ies may grant each oth­er elec­tron­ic ac­cess to li­cence ap­plic­a­tions, the as­so­ci­ated doc­u­ments and oth­er re­cords.¹⁰¹

² The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may re­fuse to hand over re­cords if:

a.

the pur­pose of the re­cords is to help it form opin­ions in­tern­ally;

b.

the hand over of the re­cords would jeop­ard­ise cur­rent pro­ceed­ings or com­prom­ise the ful­fil­ment of its over­sight activ­ity;

c.

this would be in­com­pat­ible with the aims or the pur­pose of audit over­sight.

In or­der to en­force the pro­vi­sions of the CO, the AOA and the rel­ev­ant im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity may work and ex­change data with the com­mer­cial re­gister au­thor­it­ies.

¹ Audit firms un­der state over­sight must des­ig­nate a per­son for each audit ser­vice who will as­sume re­spons­ib­il­ity (aud­it­or in charge).

² They may only des­ig­nate per­sons as aud­it­ors in charge if the firms hold a right to is­sue in­struc­tions to these per­sons and if the per­sons in ques­tion are fa­mil­i­ar with the firm’s or­gan­isa­tion, pro­cesses and audit­ing ap­proach.

³ The aud­it­or in charge shall sign the audit re­port or the at­test­a­tion.

⁴ Audit firms shall in­form the Over­sight Au­thor­ity without delay of all changes of lead aud­it­ors, stat­ing the reas­ons for the change.

¹ Audit firms un­der state over­sight must re­port (over­sight re­port) to the Over­sight Au­thor­ity on their com­pli­ance with the pro­vi­sions of over­sight reg­u­la­tions as of 30 June of each year. They must sub­mit this re­port by 30 Septem­ber.

² They are not re­quired to sub­mit an over­sight re­port if they were li­censed dur­ing the cal­en­dar year in ques­tion or if they are in­spec­ted by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity dur­ing the cal­en­dar year.

The audit firm un­der state over­sight must sub­mit the up­dated li­cens­ing doc­u­ments to­geth­er with the re­port in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 30.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may stag­ger the in­spec­tion of audit firms un­der state over­sight in terms of the tim­ing of the in­spec­tions and the sub­ject mat­ter covered.

² It shall de­term­ine the form and sub­ject of the in­spec­tion and de­cide on the pro­ced­ure to be em­ployed.

³ It may per­form the in­spec­tion to­geth­er with over­sight au­thor­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion.¹⁰⁴

¹ In the case of audit firms that have sub­jec­ted them­selves vol­un­tar­ily to over­sight, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity in­spects audit­ing ser­vices for com­pan­ies which are not pub­lic in­terest en­tit­ies with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 2 let­ter c num­ber 1 AOA.

² Audit firms that wish to per­form audits un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts are no longer en­titled to sub­ject them­selves vol­un­tar­ily to over­sight if they meet the re­quire­ment in Art­icle 11b let­ter b.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall re­cog­nise ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions if:

a.

know­ledge of the Swiss leg­al and ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­vi­sions that are ne­ces­sary to provide leg­ally pre­scribed audit ser­vices is tested; and

b.

the ex­am­in­a­tion is held in an of­fi­cial lan­guage of the Con­fed­er­a­tion; the ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions may also al­low for the ex­am­in­a­tion in Eng­lish.

² It may is­sue ad­di­tion­al pro­vi­sions, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to the con­tent of the ex­am­in­a­tion.

³ It may is­sue ex­am­in­a­tion reg­u­la­tions and of­fer ex­am­in­a­tions it­self.

¹ The Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive and the staff of the Over­sight Au­thor­ity must be in­de­pend­ent from the audit­ing pro­fes­sion.

² ...¹⁰⁸

¹ The Board of Dir­ect­ors shall de­cide the com­pos­i­tion, vot­ing pro­ced­ures and struc­ture of the joint body cre­ated for the Over­sight Au­thor­ity’s em­ploy­ee pen­sion fund. In the case of col­lect­ive em­ploy­ee pen­sion funds for sev­er­al af­fil­i­ated em­ploy­ers, the em­ploy­ers them­selves shall agree upon the rules to be ap­plied.

² Only in­di­vidu­als who have the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and ma­na­geri­al skills may be ap­poin­ted as mem­bers of the joint body. Where pos­sible, mem­ber­ship of the joint body shall re­flect gender and lin­guist­ic par­ity.

³ PUB­LICA’s Fund Com­mis­sion shall de­cide on the re­mu­ner­a­tion to be paid to mem­bers of the joint body.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall charge fees for its de­cisions, in­spec­tions and ser­vices.

² Un­less spe­cif­ic reg­u­la­tions are con­tained in this Or­din­ance, the pro­vi­sions of the Gen­er­al Or­din­ance on Fees of 8 Septem­ber 2004¹⁰⁹ ap­ply.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall levy a fee from ap­plic­ants for:

a.

as­sess­ing a li­cence ap­plic­a­tion;

b.

re­new­ing a li­cence;

c.

chan­ging the type of li­cence;

d.

trans­fer­ring a li­cence (Art. 21a).

² The fee for the as­sess­ment of each li­cence shall be as fol­lows:¹¹¹

a.

for in­di­vidu­als: 800 francs;

b.

for audit firms: 1500 francs.

³ ...¹¹²

⁴ If an un­usu­ally large amount of work is re­quired for the as­sess­ment, the fee shall be doubled. A sep­ar­ate charge shall be made for ex­penses.

⁵ For the as­sess­ment of the li­cence ap­plic­a­tions of audit firms un­der state over­sight, a fee shall be charged on the basis of the ac­tu­al time spent. The hourly rate shall be 250 francs, with the min­im­um fee amount­ing to 5000 francs. Firms that vol­un­tar­ily sub­ject them­selves to over­sight shall also be li­able to pay the fee.

⁶If an audit firm un­der state over­sight sub­mits sev­er­al li­cence ap­plic­a­tions sim­ul­tan­eously, the li­cence fees shall be charged based on ac­tu­al time spent.¹¹³

⁷ ...¹¹⁴

⁸ If an audit firm un­der state over­sight solely audits per­sons un­der Art­icle 1b BankA¹¹⁵ (Art. 11a para. 1 let. a^bis), the fee is 1500 francs.¹¹⁶

¹ The fees for the in­spec­tion of audit firms un­der state over­sight shall be de­term­ined on the basis of the ac­tu­al time spent.

² The daily rate for the staff of the Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall be between 1000 and 2500 francs per per­son, de­pend­ing on the ex­pert­ise re­quired. The daily rate for any third parties en­gaged shall be based on the cus­tom­ary mar­ket rates.

¹ For oth­er de­cisions and ser­vices a fee shall be charged on the basis of the ac­tu­al time spent. The hourly rate shall be 250 francs.

² …¹¹⁷

The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Justice and Po­lice may ad­just the rates for fees in line with in­fla­tion.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall charge an an­nu­al over­sight levy to audit firms un­der state over­sight to fin­ance the costs that are not covered by fees.

² The over­sight levy shall res­ult from the ra­tio of the in­di­vidu­al audit firm’s audit fees to the sum of all audit fees pos­ted by audit firms un­der state over­sight. It shall amount to at least 10,000 francs.

^2bis ...¹¹⁸

^2ter The an­nu­al over­sight levy for audit firms un­der state over­sight that only audit per­sons un­der Art­icle 1b BankA¹¹⁹ amounts to a min­im­um of 2500 francs.¹²⁰

³ The audit fees in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11 para­graph 3 shall form the basis for the cal­cu­la­tion.

The over­sight levy shall be paid for the dur­a­tion of the li­cence.

¹ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall re­quire audit firms that are li­able to pay the levy to make a pay­ment to ac­count on the basis of its budget in the ac­count­ing year in ques­tion.

² In the first quarter of the sub­sequent year it shall draw up the fi­nal ac­count on the basis of its an­nu­al fin­an­cial state­ments. Any dif­fer­ences between the pay­ment to ac­count and fi­nal ac­count shall be car­ried for­ward to the sub­sequent year’s pay­ment on ac­count.

³ The pay­ment shall be made with­in 30 days.

⁴ If the over­sight levy is dis­puted, the audit firm may de­mand an ap­peal­able de­cision.

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

provides false in­form­a­tion in a li­cence ap­plic­a­tion;

b.¹²¹

uses titles such as «li­censed aud­it­or», «li­censed audit ex­pert», «li­censed lead aud­it­or for reg­u­lat­ory audits», «li­censed audit firm», «audit firm un­der state over­sight» or «li­censed audit com­pany for reg­u­lat­ory audits» without hav­ing a li­cence (Art. 12 para­graph 3);

c.¹²²

fails des­pite re­ceiv­ing a pri­or warn­ing to com­ply with the duty to as­sist in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14,

shall be li­able to a fine of up to 100,000 francs.¹²³

² The pen­alty shall be a fine of up to 50,000 francs if the of­fence is com­mit­ted through neg­li­gence.¹²⁴

The re­peal and amend­ment of cur­rent le­gis­la­tion are reg­u­lated in the An­nex.

¹ Any per­son who sub­mits a li­cence ap­plic­a­tion with­in four months fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of the AOA and provides con­firm­a­tion of pay­ment of the fee in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 38 shall re­ceive a pro­vi­sion­al li­cence to provide audit ser­vices. It shall be noted in the re­gister of aud­it­ors that the li­cence in ques­tion is pro­vi­sion­al.

² If the li­cens­ing re­quire­ments have clearly not been sat­is­fied, the ap­plic­a­tion shall be re­jec­ted.

³ In­di­vidu­als who are em­ployed by or have an in­terest in an audit firm and the audit firm in ques­tion must co­ordin­ate the sub­mis­sion of their ap­plic­a­tions.

⁴ The ap­plic­ant shall re­ceive elec­tron­ic con­firm­a­tion of the pro­vi­sion­al li­cence. The stock ex­change shall re­ceive elec­tron­ic no­ti­fic­a­tion of all pro­vi­sion­al li­cences is­sued to audit firms un­der state over­sight.

⁵ The Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall set in­di­vidu­als and firms with a pro­vi­sion­al li­cence an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od with­in which they must sub­mit the doc­u­ments as­so­ci­ated with the ap­plic­a­tion. At the same time, it shall warn them that the pro­vi­sion­al li­cence will be with­drawn in the event that the doc­u­ments are not sub­mit­ted on time. The Over­sight Au­thor­ity may ex­tend the peri­od ap­pro­pri­ately, on re­ceiv­ing a writ­ten re­quest to this ef­fect, if there are com­pel­ling reas­ons for do­ing so.

⁶ If the peri­od in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 5 is not ob­served, the Over­sight Au­thor­ity shall with­draw the pro­vi­sion­al li­cence. It shall in­form the rel­ev­ant over­sight au­thor­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with spe­cif­ic le­gis­la­tion and, if ap­plic­able, the stock ex­change of this with­draw­al in writ­ing and shall ad­just the re­gister ac­cord­ingly. In this case the li­cence ap­plic­a­tion may be sub­mit­ted again by means of the or­din­ary pro­ced­ure.

⁷ Audit ser­vices that are provided with a pro­vi­sion­al li­cence are leg­ally val­id even if a defin­it­ive li­cence is sub­sequently re­fused.

¹ Any per­son who, with­in four months fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of the AOA, sub­mits a li­cence ap­plic­a­tion and holds a for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tion com­par­able to a Swiss qual­i­fic­a­tion (Art. 4 para. 2 let. d AOA) shall re­ceive a pro­vi­sion­al li­cence to provide audit ser­vices if he or she com­pletes a course to demon­strate that he or she has the ne­ces­sary know­ledge of Swiss law. The pro­vi­sion­al li­cence shall be with­drawn if the course and ex­am­in­a­tion have not been suc­cess­fully com­pleted by 31 Au­gust 2008.

² If, over the three years pre­ced­ing the sub­mis­sion of the ap­plic­a­tion, in­di­vidu­als in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 have pre­dom­in­antly been work­ing for an audit firm that has its re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land and have primar­ily been provid­ing audit ser­vices in ac­cord­ance with Swiss law, they shall not be re­quired either to com­plete a course or an ex­am­in­a­tion to demon­strate that they have the ne­ces­sary know­ledge of Swiss law.

¹ Audit firms per­form­ing or­din­ary audits must have an in­tern­al qual­ity con­trol sys­tem as of 15 Decem­ber 2013 and su­per­vise its ap­pro­pri­ate­ness and ef­fect­ive­ness (Art. 9 para. 1).

² Audit firms that con­duct lim­ited audits must have an in­tern­al qual­ity con­trol sys­tem as of 1 Oc­to­ber 2017 and su­per­vise its ap­pro­pri­ate­ness and ef­fect­ive­ness (Art. 9 para. 1).¹²⁶

¹ In­di­vidu­als may be li­censed as audit ex­perts or aud­it­ors in ap­plic­a­tion of Art­icle 43 para­graph 6 AOA if they are able to demon­strate that:

a.

on 1 Ju­ly 1992 they were qual­i­fied and had ac­quired the cor­res­pond­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 1 para­graph 1 of the Or­din­ance of 15 June 1992¹²⁷ on the Pro­fes­sion­al Re­quire­ments for Spe­cially Qual­i­fied Aud­it­ors;

b.

since 1 Ju­ly 1992 they have pre­dom­in­antly been work­ing in the fields of ac­count­ing and audit­ing without sub­stan­tial in­ter­rup­tions.

² It shall not be ne­ces­sary for them to demon­strate that they ac­quired their pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence un­der over­sight.

The peri­od of sev­en years for the ro­ta­tion of the aud­it­or in charge (Art. 730a para. 2 CO) shall com­mence when the amend­ment to the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions of 16 Decem­ber 2005¹²⁸ comes in­to force. The aud­it­or in charge may audit a max­im­um of sev­en an­nu­al fin­an­cial state­ments from the time this amend­ment comes in­to force.

¹ Audit com­pan­ies for reg­u­lat­ory audits that only audit fin­an­cial in­ter­me­di­ar­ies as­so­ci­ated with a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with AMLA¹³⁰ (Art. 11a para. 2) must meet the li­cens­ing re­quire­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11b let­ter a with­in two years of this amend­ment com­ing in­to force.

² Lead aud­it­ors for reg­u­lat­ory audits who have a FINMA li­cence or who work for a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with the AMLA on the day this amend­ment comes in­to force must meet the re­quire­ments re­gard­ing audit­ing hours in Art­icles 11d para­graph 2 let­ter a, 11e para­graph 2 let­ter a, 11f para­graph 2 let­ter a, 11g para­graph 2 let­ter a and 11j with­in two years of this amend­ment com­ing in­to force.

³ Li­cence ap­plic­a­tions filed by audit com­pan­ies and lead aud­it­ors for reg­u­lat­ory audits which have not been de­cided upon by FINMA when this amend­ment comes in­to force shall be as­sessed by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity in ac­cord­ance with the new law.

Audit firms provid­ing audit­ing ser­vices for com­pan­ies in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 let­ter a AOA whose equity se­cur­it­ies are lis­ted on a Swiss stock ex­change when the amend­ment of 1 Ju­ly 2015 comes in­to force and for which the li­cens­ing duty is can­celled must re­gister with the Over­sight Au­thor­ity with­in three months at the latest of the amend­ment of 1 Ju­ly 2015 com­ing in­to force.

In the first two years after this Or­din­ance comes in­to force, lead aud­it­ors who audit per­sons un­der Art­icle 1b BankA may, in derog­a­tion from Art­icle 11d^bis para­graph 3, count their pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence and audit hours in the over­sight areas un­der Art­icle 11a para­graph 1 let­ter a and c com­pletely to­wards the re­quire­ments un­der Art­icle 11d^bispara­graphs 1 and 2.

¹ In­di­vidu­als with qual­i­fic­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 para­graph 2 let­ter b AOA must ful­fil the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 7 para­graph 2 with­in three years at the latest of the amend­ment of 23 Novem­ber 2022 com­ing in­to force and in­di­vidu­als with qual­i­fic­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 para­graph 2 let­ter c AOA must ful­fil the re­quire­ments with­in five years at the latest of the amend­ment of 23 Novem­ber 2022 com­ing in­to force.

² The re­quire­ments of Art­icle 7 para­graphs 3 and 4 let­ter b must be ful­filled with­in one year at the latest of the amend­ment of 23 Novem­ber 2022 com­ing in­to force.

¹ The li­cences for audit­ing un­der the OASIA gran­ted by the Fed­er­al So­cial In­sur­ance Of­fice un­der the pre­vi­ous law re­main val­id. After two years, they shall be auto­mat­ic­ally ter­min­ated un­less a new li­cence has been gran­ted un­der the new law in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of Art­icles 11n–11p.

² Ap­plic­a­tions for li­cences from audit firms and from lead aud­it­ors that have not been de­cided on by Fed­er­al So­cial In­sur­ance Of­fice when this amend­ment comes in­to force shall be as­sessed by the Over­sight Au­thor­ity un­der the new law.

¹ This Or­din­ance shall come in­to force on 1 Septem­ber 2007, sub­ject to para­graphs 2–4.

² Art­icle 10 para­graph 1 shall come in­to force on 1 Oc­to­ber 2015. Art­icles 13 para­graph 2 and 20 let­ter j of the ver­sion of 22 Au­gust 2007¹³⁵ shall not come in­to force.¹³⁶

³ Art­icle 21 shall come in­to force on 1 Septem­ber 2009.

⁴ Num­bers II/7, II/8 and II/9 of the An­nex come in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 2008.