1.—(1) The competent authority may for any purpose related to inspecting or investigating statutory audit work give notice to any statutory auditor (“A”) requiring A to provide information specified in the notice.U.K.
(2) Information may be specified in a notice under sub-paragraph (1) only if it is information relating to the statutory audit of the annual accounts or the consolidated accounts of any audited person.
(3) The competent authority may give notice to any person mentioned in sub-paragraph (4) requiring that person to provide information relating to the statutory audit of the annual accounts or the consolidated accounts of any public interest entity.
(4) The persons to whom notice may be given under sub-paragraph (3) are—
(a)any person involved in the activities of a statutory auditor (including any person to whom a statutory auditor has outsourced such activities),
(b)any public interest entity,
(c)any subsidiary or parent of a public interest entity or any other subsidiary of a company of which a public interest entity is a subsidiary,
(d)any person otherwise having a connection to a statutory auditor carrying out the statutory audit of the annual accounts or consolidated accounts of a public interest entity.
(5) A notice under sub-paragraph (1) or (3) must be in writing and specify the purposes for which the information is required.
(6) A notice under sub-paragraph (1) or (3) may—
(a)specify the time within which and the manner in which the person to whom it is given must comply with it,
(b)require the creation of documents, or documents of a description, specified in the notice, and
(c)require the provision of those documents to the competent authority.
(7) A requirement to provide information or create a document is a requirement to do so in a legible form.
(8) A notice under sub-paragraph (1) or (3) does not require a person to provide any information or create any documents which the person would be entitled to refuse to provide or produce—
(a)in proceedings in the High Court on the grounds of legal professional privilege, or
(b)in proceedings in the Court of Session on the grounds of confidentiality of communications.
(9) In sub-paragraph (8) “communications” means—
(a)communications between a professional legal adviser and his client, or
(b)communications made in connection with or in contemplation of legal proceedings or for the purposes of those proceedings.