A Study Of The Audit Civil Liabilities Against Certified Public Accountants

The civil liability issue against certified public accountants has always been a key and difficult issue, a common concern to accountants and the law circle. Since the 1960s, there has been dramatic increase of law cases against certified accountants in various countries, which can be called the explosion age of lawsuits. It has been nearly 30 years since China restored the certified accountant system. Afterwards, the certified accountant profession entered a relatively loose and tranquil period of legal regulation. In recent years with the rapid development of stock market in our country, there have been frequent exposures of fake financial statements of listed companies, and more and more lawsuits for civil liability brought about by companies and investors against certified accountants.For the civil liability problems against certified accountants, particularly the audit civil liability problem, the Chinese legal circle and accountant circle disagree considerably, and the legal practices and concrete enforcements of courts of different regions are enormously inconsistent because of non-unified legislation and imperfect legal institution. Analyzing the components of audit civil liability against certified accountants and exploring the optimal path to solve the issue of audit civil liability against certified accountants have important theoretical value and practical significance for promoting a healthy development of the certified accountant profession and the perfection of related legislative works.Mainly adopting the standard research method, qualitative analytic method, and comparative analytic method, the article presents a detailed analysis and research on the nature, characteristics, and principle of culpability for the audit civil liability against certified accountants, as well as their liability components and related arguments. Based on the fact that the Chinese laws regulate the certified accountant's legal liability more in terms of criminal responsibility and administrative responsibility, and its regulation on civil liability is too general and non-operative, this article analyzes in-depth the legislative flaws of our country on the audit civil liability against certified accountants, and based on this, this article creatively proposes the view of perfecting the responsibilities of the commission for identifying the liabilities of certified accountants in our country, of promoting the liability insurance system and professional risk fund system for certified accountants for the purpose of constructing a perfect institutional framework for the audit civil liabilities against certified accountants.