The Limitation of an Auditior's Liability in South Africa

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Law - Comparative Legal Systems, Comparative Law, , course: LLM, language: English, abstract: This dissertation recommends that the laws governing the liability of the auditor in South Africa be amended to ensure a sustainable audit function and accordingly a competitive market for audit firms. These amendments must take the form of (a) introducing a monetary cap or ceiling on the quantum of damages that may be claimed by a plaintiff in the event that an auditor is found guilty of a breach of his or her legal duties and obligations in contract and in delict, (b) the provision for auditors to enter into contracts with their clients to limit the quantum of damages that may be suffered by the client as a result of the auditor's breach of the contract with his or her client, and (c) introducing legislation which, will protect audit partners from personal liability if they did not participate directly in another partner's misdeed or fraud. It is submitted that this dissertation should be viewed as a Revised Project 70 where the South African Law Commission in 1988 investigated the desirability of the limitation of professional persons and the possible regulation thereof by legislation [the conclusion was that there was no justification to limit the liability of any category of professionals by legislation]; which is updated with and including the fundamental and paradigm shifting changes that have taken place in the global markets since then regulators in Australia, United States of America, United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Slovenia and Australia have removed the prohibition on auditors limiting their liability in relation to work conducted within the statutory audit function. This dissertation explores and analyses whether these significant changes to the legal systems in the United States of America, European Union and Australia would be considered appropriate for implementation in South Africa. The main component of this dissertation is constituted by a comparative analysis of the different civil liability systems for auditors which currently exist in Australia, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The objective of the comparative analysis was to determine to what extent the different systems of civil liability of auditors which exist in Australia, Germany, United Kingdom and United States of America could be implemented in South Africa. [...]