The Commission has published today a consultation paper on two new Orders proposed to be made under the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991 (the “Companies Law”).

The two Orders follow on from the recent decision of the States Assembly to make the Companies (Amendment No. 4) (Jersey) Regulations 2009 (the “Regulations”) which will, amongst other things, amend the Companies Law to provide a registration and oversight regime for auditors of market traded companies (“Recognized Auditors”) and provide for market traded companies to be required to follow certain prescribed accounting standards when preparing their accounts.

The first Order, the Companies (Audit) (Jersey) Order 201-, will:

• set out what information the Register of Recognized Auditors must contain, what form it must take, and other ancillary matters relating to the keeping of the Register by the Commission;
• set out what the rules governing the conduct of the audit of market traded companies by Recognized Auditors must contain; and
• set out certain independence requirements that all auditors of Jersey companies must satisfy.

The second Order, the Companies (GAAP) (Jersey) Order 201-, will prescribe which ‘generally accepted accounting principles’ (“GAAP”) a market traded company shall use when preparing its accounts.

The GAAPs proposed are:

• Canadian GAAP;
• Japanese GAAP;
• United Kingdom GAAP;
• United States GAAP;
• International Financial Reporting Standards

Subject to Ministerial approval, the intention is that both Orders will come into force on 5 April 2010 (the same date as the States Assembly is expected to be asked to bring the Regulations into force).
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