Federal Act
on the Licensing and Oversight
of Auditors
(Auditor Oversight Act, AOA)

¹ An audit firm shall be li­censed as an audit com­pany for reg­u­lat­ory audits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 let­ter a num­ber 2 if it:

a.

is li­censed in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 9 para­graph 1;

b.

is suf­fi­ciently or­gan­ised for these audits; and

c.

does not ex­er­cise any oth­er activ­ity sub­ject to li­cens­ing in ac­cord­ance with the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts (Art­icle 1 para­graph 1 FIN­MASA¹⁷).

² A per­son is li­censed to lead audits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 2 let­ter a num­ber 2 (lead aud­it­or) if the per­son:

a.

is li­censed as an audit ex­pert in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4; and

b.

has the ne­ces­sary ex­pert­ise and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence for the audit un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts (Art. 1 para­graph 1 FIN­MASA).

³ For li­cens­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter a, tech­nic­al ex­per­i­ence de­vi­at­ing from Art­icle 4 para­graph 4 but de­riv­ing from audits in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 1 let­ters a and b FIN­MASA may also be cred­ited.

⁴ ...¹⁸

^4bis The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for sim­pli­fied re­quire­ments for li­cens­ing audit com­pan­ies and lead aud­it­ors for the audit­ing of per­sons un­der Art­icle 1b of the Bank­ing Act of 8 Novem­ber 1934¹⁹.²⁰

⁵ ...²¹