In 2016, a number of new rules regarding the auditing of large financial institutions within Europe were established. The regulations had a number of aims and we will discuss them in today’s post, but one of the major aims was to ensure further transparency when it came to the auditing of PIEs, or ‘Public-Interest Entities’. Interestingly, this designation allows the EU to capture financial institutions that hail from outside of the EU, and in today’s news the first test of those regulations was passed when Goldman Sachs announced that its new auditor from 2021, in complying with the rotational elements of the regulation, would be Mazars, marking the Bank’s first move outside the so-called ‘Big Four’ auditors in its history. The regulations that came into force in 2016 have a number of aims including: ensuring further transparency; providing statutory auditors with a strong mandate to be independent; develop a more dynamic audit market; and to improve the supervision of auditor...