ASSESSMENT OF RISKS OF MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING AND INFLUENCE ON FINANCIAL AUDIT OPINION

Abstract

Almost half of the Romanian companies have been victims of economic crime in the last two years, and over 50% of the economic crimes committed globally were caused by the inefficiency of internal control mechanisms, according to a PwC Report of May 2018. Under these conditions, it was necessary for economic entities to develop procedures that prevent, combat, but also report fraudulent behavior. The financial auditor has an important role to play in this direction, both for assessing the risk of fraud, in general, and for assessing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, in particular. In this regard, recent changes were made to regulations issued at European and national level on the obligations of financial auditors for the establishment of measures to prevent and combat money laundering and terrorist financing in the missions in which they are involved. This article aims, on the one hand, to highlight the financial audit procedures for assessing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing identified in the audit missions of companies listed on the BSE, and on the other, to test the influence these risks on the reporting by the financial auditors of the suspicious transactions, but also on the audit opinion.

Keywords

• financial audit
• money laundering
• terrorist financing
• risk questionnaire
• audit opinion.