Getting ahead of ARGA: more than just a ‘UKSOX’

The UK government’s March 2021 white paper ‘Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance’ has set pulses racing across UK boardrooms, management teams and professional services providers. Its wide-ranging recommendations, a response to three independent reviews completed since 2018, indicate a potentially seismic shift in the UK corporate governance and audit regime –bringing frequent comparisons to the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act(SOX).

While comparisons with SOX are valuable and help to orientate the conversations that risk and assurance professionals need to have with their stakeholders, there are no guarantees as to what practical obligations will be placed on UK public companies and PIEs (public interest entities). In fact, given the significant differences in our markets and regulatory environments, it may be a risky strategy to simply assume parity and move on.

In this exclusive roundtable, we’ll discuss the practical steps that organisations can take to get ahead of the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) regime and prepare for new regulatory obligations–ideally, doing so easily, efficiently and effectively while learning lessons from the US experience since 2002.

• What’s going to happen, when will it happen and what does it mean for me?
• What does it mean for Audit Committees?
• What can we reutilize? Let’s not reinvent the wheel.