25 June 2011
in London and bank limited case law for audit(ipcc), the auditor was punished for wrongly reporting the balance sheet as 'full and fair', and was ordered to pay the dividend wrongfully paid.
The primary objective of an auditor being expression of opinion, was the auditor penalized specifically for expression of an incorrect opinion? The assets in the signed balance sheet in this case were overvalued.
In my opinion, overvaluation may be due to fraud or error, and the auditor can not be punished for subsequent detection of fraud or error.