KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Court has unanimously ruled in favour of the Securities Commission (SC) and dismissed the application for leave to appeal by audit firm Afrizan Tarmili Khairul Azhar (AFTAAS) and its partners, Afrizan Husain, Tamili Dulah Kusni and Khairul Azahar Ariffin.
An apex court panel comprising Azahar Mohamed, Hasnah Mohammed Hashim and Abu Bakar Jais delivered the decision yesterday.
In a statement, the SC said the decision reflected the seriousness of the breaches and reinforced the robustness of its audit oversight board’s (AOB) enforcement framework.
The audit firm was also ordered to pay RM30,000 in costs to the SC.
“AFTAAS and its partners were sanctioned by the AOB for several breaches involving non-compliance with the auditing standards on fundamental and basic audit procedures during the inspection period between Feb 14 and March 5, 2019,” the statement said.
It said the AOB also found that some of the findings were recurring from previous inspections on auditors, raising concerns on their capacity and capability.
The firm and its partners were prohibited from accepting clients and auditing public interest entities or scheduled funds for a period of 12 months.
In addition, AOB imposed fines of RM455,000 on the audit firm and RM88,000 each on Afrizan and Khairul.
With the Federal Court decision, the stay on the AOB’s enforcement decisions until the disposal of the leave application to the apex court obtained by the audit firm and its partners at the Court of Appeal on Feb 11 has lapsed.
As such, the sanctions imposed by the AOB in its enforcement decision, including the prohibitions, will take effect from yesterday. - FMT
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