North Carolina’s Supreme Court Rules in Favor of 会计 Firm in Case Involving 审计ors’ Fiduciary Duties to Clients

的 Supreme Court of North Carolina in September reversed a North Carolina Court of Appeals decision finding that an auditor could or might have fiduciary duties to its client.  的 美国注册188bet亚洲真人体育下载 (188bet亚洲真人体育下载), 北卡罗莱纳州注册188bet亚洲真人体育下载 (NCACPA)，以及 审计质量中心 (CAQ)已联合提交一份文件 法庭之友简报 with the Supreme Court of North Carolina in support of the accounting firm in the case. 

的 three-party brief urged the Supreme Court of North Carolina to reverse the appellate court’s decision, noting that the appellate court holding that an auditor may owe a fiduciary duty to an audit client cannot be reconciled with professional auditing standards and North Carolina law, which mandate an auditor be independent of the audit client.  In informing the Supreme Court of North Carolina that an auditor is required to act independently, 客观公正, 而且对审计客户没有偏见, 的NCACPA, 188bet亚洲真人体育下载, and CAQ requested that longstanding principles of auditor independence be upheld in North Carolina.  美国.S. 商会, 北卡罗来纳商会, NASBA and several accounting firms had also filed 法庭之友简报s in support of the accounting firm.

康普信用合作社诉. 巴特勒 & 伯克, involves a credit union that was penalized by the Internal Revenue Service for failing to file its federal Form 990 over of a number of years.  的 credit union in turn sued its auditor alleging, 除此之外, that the CPA firm breached its fiduciary duty to the credit union.  的 firm moved to dismiss all claims and the trial court granted the motion.  On appeal, however, the appellate court reversed the trial court’s decision.  在其裁决中, the appellate court held that it was possible a fiduciary relationship may exist between the auditor and audit client based on a standard audit engagement.  Although no North Carolina court had squarely addressed this issue before, the appellate court’s decision departed from settled precedent in numerous other jurisdictions recognizing that the auditor-client relationship by its nature cannot be a fiduciary one.

After granting the audit firm’s petition for discretionary review, the Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the Court of Appeals on the fiduciary duty issue; however, the court did not go so far as to state that an auditor-client relationship could not be a fiduciary relationship as a matter of law. 而, the court clarified that the typical obligations of an auditor under applicable 188bet亚洲真人体育下载 standards cannot be used, 没有更多的, 宣示信托关系. This should be a signal to lower courts that fiduciary duty claims in this area are disfavored and should also discourage plaintiffs’ lawyers in practical application from trying to bring such claims.

的 Supreme Court of North Carolina split evenly on other issues in the case, which means the Court of Appeals’ decision on these issues stands for the case but has no precedential value.  的 remaining claims will now be litigated at the trial court level.