Authors:

  • Jesse Fried

Excerpt

March 18, 2024, Paper: "Several hundred Chinese companies with a total market capitalization of approximately $1 trillion are listed on U.S. exchanges. Until recently, China prevented the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board from inspecting the China-based auditors of these firms, as required by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In late 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed into law the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act which, as amended, requires the delisting of any firm whose auditors cannot be inspected by the PCAOB for two years in a row (the delisting rule).  In addition, the Act requires any China-based firm whose auditor cannot be inspected by the PCAOB to submit documentation and make certain disclosures related to their ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (the disclosure rules). In 2022, China began allowing PCAOB inspections, averting (at least for now) mass delistings."