来源：《每日电讯报》
原文刊登日期：2021年3月17日
These are difficult times for most businesses so the imposition of new regulations is unlikely to help matters any more than the increase in corporation tax announced in the Budget. Yet the Government is today publishing its long-awaited white paper on audit reform that will saddle company directors with additional responsibilities even as they struggle to rescue their enterprises from the ravages of the lockdowns and come to terms with the impact of Brexit.
对于大多数企业来说，现在都是困难时期，因此，新法规的实施不太可能比预算中宣布的增加公司税更有帮助。然而，政府今天发布了期待已久的审计改革白皮书，该白皮书将让公司董事承担更多责任，即使他们正在努力将企业从封锁的蹂躏中拯救出来，并接受英国脱欧的影响。
The genesis of this overhaul was the collapse in 2018 of Carillion, one of the country’s largest construction firms, followed by the bankruptcy of the bakery chain Patisserie Valerie. Both episodes exposed serious shortcomings in the audit process that led several inquiries to recommend a shake-up in procedures. But rather than focus directly on the big auditing companies, whose job is to ensure the accounts are properly kept, the white paper seeks to extend corporate responsibility to directors who could face fines or bans from a new regulator for accounting errors.
这一改革的起源是2018年英国最大的建筑公司之一Carillion的倒闭，随后是烘焙连锁店Patisserie-Valerie的破产。这两起事件都暴露了审计过程中的严重缺陷，导致几次调查建议对审计程序进行改革。但白皮书并没有直接关注大型审计公司(它们的职责是确保账目得到妥善保管)，而是试图将企业责任扩大到可能因会计错误而面临新监管机构罚款或禁令的董事。
In addition, the audit definition is to be extended beyond a company’s financial results to check if they have conformed to targets for reducing carbon emissions. There may be good reasons behind these measures, but now is not the time to put people off from starting up a company or joining an existing board, especially when there is a clear need to attract more women and other under-represented groups into the boardroom.
此外，审计定义将扩展到公司的财务业绩之外，例如包括检查企业是否符合减少碳排放的目标。这些措施背后可能有很好的理由，但现在不是阻止人们创办公司或加入现有董事会的时候，特别是在显然需要吸引更多女性和其他代表性不足的群体进入董事会的时候。
The Government says these rules will apply only to serious failures in the largest firms and is a genuine consultation with no decisions yet taken. In that case, they should wait until the Covid crisis is over.
政府表示，这些规则只适用于那些严重破产的大公司，而且是一个真正的咨询，尚未作出决定。即使是这样，政府也应该等到新冠疫情结束。