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

¹ An in­di­vidu­al shall be li­censed as an audit ex­pert if he or she sat­is­fies the re­quire­ments re­lat­ing to edu­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence and has a spot­less re­cord.

² The fol­low­ing per­sons sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments re­lat­ing to edu­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence:

a.

Swiss cer­ti­fied ac­count­ants;

b.

Swiss cer­ti­fied fi­du­ciary ex­perts, Swiss cer­ti­fied tax con­sult­ants and ac­count­ing and con­trolling ex­perts who hold the fed­er­al dip­loma, provided they each have at least five years’ pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence;

c.

gradu­ates in busi­ness, eco­nom­ics or law fol­lowed from a Swiss uni­versity or uni­versity of ap­plied sci­ences, spe­cial­ists in fin­ance and ac­count­ing who hold a fed­er­al cer­ti­fic­ate and fi­du­ciar­ies who hold a fed­er­al cer­ti­fic­ate, provided they each have at least twelve years’ pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence;

d.

per­sons who hold for­eign qual­i­fic­a­tions com­par­able to those stated un­der let­ter a, b or c, have cor­res­pond­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence and can demon­strate the ne­ces­sary know­ledge of Swiss law, in so far as this is provided for in a treaty with the coun­try of ori­gin or the coun­try of ori­gin grants re­cipro­city.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­cog­nise oth­er equi­val­ent qual­i­fic­a­tions and de­term­ine the peri­od of the re­quired pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence.

⁴ The pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence must have been ac­quired primar­ily in the fields of ac­count­ing and audit­ing, with at least two thirds un­der the over­sight of a li­censed audit ex­pert or a for­eign spe­cial­ist with com­par­able qual­i­fic­a­tions. Pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence ac­quired while train­ing shall be taken in­to ac­count, provided that these re­quire­ments have been met.