KUALA LUMPUR: The Court of Appeal today ruled in favour of the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) and set aside a High Court decision on August 10, 2020, to quash the SC's Audit Oversight Board's (AOB) enforcement actions against Afrizan Tarmili Khairul Azhar (AFTAAS) and its partners.
In a statement today, the SC said the partners are Datuk Mohd Afrizan Husain, Tamili Dulah Kusni and Khairul Azahar Ariffin.
"The decision of the Court of Appeal reinforces the robustness of the AOB's enforcement framework and its processes.
"AFTAAS was sanctioned by the AOB for several breaches involving non-compliance with the auditing standards on fundamental and basic audit procedures," it said.
The SC said the AOB also found that some of the findings were recurring from the AOB's previous inspection on AFTAAS, raising concerns on the capacity and capability of the firm.
"The firm and its partners were prohibited from accepting as clients and auditing public interest entities (PIE) or schedule funds for a period of 12 months.
"In addition, the AOB also imposed fines of RM455,000 on AFTAAS, and RM88,000 each on Datuk Mohd Afrizan and Khairul respectively.
"Given the Court of Appeal decision, the AOB's enforcement actions remain in effect," it said.