11 januari 2022
The law of 2 June 2021 on various financial provisions to fight against fraud has been published on
18 June 2021 in the Belgian Gazette. This law defines the role and obligations of the accredited
auditors in this matter, including the issuance of an annual statement specifying whether or not they
have identified, in the course of their audit mandate, any evidence of prohibited special
mechanisms.
In this context, model reports of this annual statement have been drafted by the IRAIF/IREFI, that are currently submitted to the prudential control authorities for their review and approval. In the meantime, to facilitate the planning and the performance of the procedures by the accredited auditors, the Board wants to share the French versions of this draft at this stage. The Dutch versions of this report will be shared with you as well once finalized.
We would also like to remind our members of the role of the (accredited) auditor in the prevention
of money laundering and terrorist financing, the reporting obligation towards the CTIF in the event
of the suspicion of money laundering and the related prohibition to share this information with the
client. The transmission of the annual statement to the client should therefore be carefully
considered by the accredited auditor on a case-by-case basis. When the statement is transmitted to
the client, the restrictions on use and distribution as set out in the model report should be included
in the cover letter to the client. No restrictions on use and distribution need to be included in the
annual statement addressed to the prudential control authorities.