5.

The competent authority shall comply with the following criteria when appointing inspectors: inspectors shall have appropriate professional education and relevant experience in statutory audit and financial reporting combined with specific training on quality assurance reviews; a person who is a practising statutory auditor or is employed by or otherwise associated with a statutory auditor or an audit firm shall not be allowed to act as an inspector; a person shall not be allowed to act as an inspector in an inspection of a statutory auditor or an audit firm until at least three years have elapsed since that person ceased to be a partner or employee of that statutory auditor or of that audit firm or to be otherwise associated with that statutory auditor or audit firm; inspectors shall declare that there are no conflicts of interest between them and the statutory auditor and the audit firm to be inspected. By way of derogation from point (b) of paragraph 1, a competent authority may contract experts for carrying out specific inspections when the number of inspectors within the authority is insufficient. The competent authority may also be assisted by experts when this is essential for the proper conduct of an inspection. In such instances, the competent authorities and the experts shall comply with the requirements of this paragraph. Experts shall not be involved in the governance of, or employed or otherwise contracted by professional associations and bodies but may be members of such associations or bodies.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-12 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.