Financial auditing and financial reporting for Romanian state-owned companies – modified opinions and observations

Starting with 2016, the Romanian authorities decided that 17 stateowned companies should use IFRS in their individual financial statements. The objective of this paper is to analyse how these companies have applied the accounting standardsbefore the transition to IFRS (2010-2017)through the observations included in the reports delivered by the financial auditors. The main findings are: the presence of Big 4 auditors is quite limited, but in line with the situation of others categories of Romanian companies (especially the listed companies); the modified opinion are, by far, the most frequent (more than 78%). The main justifications of the modified opinions are the non-observance of the accounting rules on the provisions, followed by problems in the measurement of the assets/liabilities, and the consequences of the prudence principle. Emphasis of matters paragraph is also very present in the audit reports: the main observations in these paragraphs is about the going concern matters ant about the dependence of the state owned companies on the decisions of some public authorities.