The Research On The Civil Liability Of Accounting Firms To The Third Party

Certified Public Account (CPA) is playing a more important role in social economic life with the improvement of corporate governance system and the development of stock market in China. The legal responsibility of accounting firms has come to be a real concern in academic and practical circles. In particular, the civil liability of accounting firms to the third party is an intensely controversial issue in academic circles at home and abroad, the magistrate rules also vary in the judicial practice of States, the civil liability accounting firms bear is uneven.On June 11,2007, the Supreme People's Court gave an announcement on the issuance of the "a number of provisions to the jurisdiction over cases relating to accounting firm regarding the audit of operational activities for compensation in tort cases" to specifically address the accounting firms' duty location and the value of trade-offs. Specialized based on the latest judicial interpretations of the rules and the specificity of practices of certified accountants, this article attempts to adopt the form of case studies, first of all, to summarize the focus of controversy of the case, and then at the basis of analysis on the focus of controversy with present theory, to derive the conclusion of the focus of controversy.The main contents of the text are as follows:Part One: A tort case relating that investors prosecute Zhongqin accounting firm. At the basis of statements on the basic facts, the focus of controversial cases are summed up, the outcome of Court's determination is given, so as to lay a basic truth for depth discussion below, to specify the research direction.Part Two: Analysis of the focus of the controversy. By virtue of combining theoretical research results at home and abroad with the existing provisions of relevant legislation, the second part analyzes the focus of controversy of the case, succinctly puts forward the merits and weaknesses on a variety of opinion, so as to lay the theoretical foundation for arriving at the conclusion of the study below. This section firstly analyzes the scope of the third person in theory and judicial practice in the changing circumstances, and then elaborates the controversy on accredited standard on false reporting and fault in the circle of the accounting profession and the legal profession, after that outlines the accredited standard on causal relationship and the allocation of the burden of proof at home and abroad, at last briefly states two different opinions on duty type. Part Three: The conclusion of study. This part is the focus of the full text, on the basis of a specific analysis in the second part, the author tries to put forward the conclusion of study about the controversial focus, and gives the applicable opinions to the case listed in this text according to its specific case. With respect to the scope of the third person, the author thinks we must focus on the overall framework of legal liability system to resolve the question of "equitable distribution of investment losses". To define the scope of the third person should be carried out in conjunction to read the different classifications of accountant's audit of the business, under the audit of the statutory purpose we should adopt the reasonably foreseeable standards, under the audit of specific purpose of the transaction we should adopt the standards of known third person. With respect to the standards of the false audit report, the author believes that false reports should meet two elements, which is that the contents of the report exists imitation, misleading or omission, and which is that the false statements are significant. With respect to the standard of fault identification, I believe that we should regard "reasonable diligence" as the standard of determining whether Certified Public Accountants has fault, and confirm the legal status of Practice Guidelines of Certified Public Accountants, and evaluate whether Certified Public Accountant do the "reasonable diligence" in the process of practicing according to whether Certified Public Accountant follow the practice guidelines. With respect to specific identification of causal relationship, the author advocates the use of a considerable causal relationship, and to find a causal relationship in accordance with the facts and the law dichotomy. For the proof of a causal relationship, the burden of proof of the existence of trust should be borne by the plaintiff, and the burden of proof of the justifiability of trust should be borne by the defendant. With respect to the identification of duty type, based on the principle of tort law and the principle of balance of interests, the author advocates Accounting Firm should bear duty ratio according to considerable fault in case of fault.