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

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.