Ms Helen Hall:

It is important to remember that the audit reform proposals do not affect only regulatory authorities such as IAASA or auditors; they also affect the entities themselves. The current list of public interest entities includes investment funds, of which we have many in this jurisdiction, captive insurance companies and reinsurance, which are tiny but will now be required to have an audit committee and non-executive directors, the cost of which will be enormous. As mentioned earlier by Mr. Houlihan, the jurisdictions most concerned are, unsurprisingly, Ireland, Luxembourg and the UK, because of the markets in which we operate. Although we term these proposals audit reform, there are impacts therein for entities, companies and investment funds.