This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 26, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The Securities Commission Malaysia’s (SC) Audit Oversight Board (AOB) has prohibited audit firm Afrizan Tarmili Khairul Azhar and its partners from accepting clients and auditing public interest entities, or schedule funds, for 12 months.

The partners involved are Datuk Mohd Afrizan Husain, Tamili Dulah Kusni and Khairul Azahar Ariffin, the SC said in a statement.

In addition to the prohibition, the AOB imposed fines of RM455,000 on the firm, and RM88,000 each on Mohd Afrizan and Khairul respectively, it said.

The statement said the audit firm and its partners were sanctioned by AOB for several breaches involving non-compliance with auditing standards on fundamental and basic audit procedures.

“This affected key financial statements line items such as, and not limited to, inventories, revenue, cost of goods sold, group consolidation, trade receivables, fixed deposits, goodwill, cash and bank balances, and bank borrowings,” it added,

In addition, the AOB found that some of the findings were recurring from the AOB’s previous inspection on the audit firm.

The SC said the firm and partners appealed to the commission on Sept 25 against the AOB’s decisions, and the commission yesterday dismissed the appeal and affirmed the AOB’s actions.