The public company accounting oversight board – PCAOB – is a non profit organization in the united states that was founded by virtue of the Sarbanes – oxley act, or in brief sox

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board – PCAOB is a non – profit organization in the United States that was founded by virtue of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or in brief SOX in order to oversee the audit and additional issues in public companies in the United States, to protect investors and public interests in those companies.

The authority for oversight by the Board is granted to stock exchanges in the United States and to the US Securities Exchange Commission – SEC. SEC is a public utilities commission government agency in the United States, responsible for the public oversight of the American capital market.

The Board (PCAOB) was founded following a series of financial scandals that occurred at the beginning of the 2000s in the United States and Europe and the crisis of trust created as a result of non-reporting of appropriate financial reporting. The Board has some 800 staff members and offices in 8 states in the United States in addition to the main headquarters located in Washington.

The authorities of the Board include, inter alia, pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or in brief SOX:

• Registration of all the firms auditing public companies
• Determination of principles of audit, quality control, ethics, non-dependency and other issues, attributed to preparation of audit reports
• Supervision over the firms auditing the public companies registered with the Board.
• Imposition of additional obligations that the Board is of the opinion are necessary and appropriate, for the purpose of promoting high professional standards and improvement of the quality of the reporting of the firms auditing public companies and their employees.

The rule of PCAOB is compliance with the audit standards and the standards of related professional occupation (3100) which obligates the registered public accounting offices and the individuals affiliated with them to comply with all the audit standards and the professional standards relating to professional work.

The PCAOB rules for audit standards (3200), standards for intermediate approval (Y3300), standards for intermediate quality control (T3400) and intermediate standards for ethics and independence (T3500) describe the PCAOB standards with which accountants are required to comply.