Cap. 386 Art. 151Appointment of auditors.

(1) A company shall, at each general meeting at which the annual accounts are laid, appoint an auditor or auditors to hold office from the conclusion of that meeting until the conclusion of the next general meeting at which such accounts are laid. The company may appoint joint auditors and references in this Act to auditor or auditors shall be deemed to include references to single or joint auditors as the case may be.

(2) The first auditors of the company may be appointed by the directors at any time before the first general meeting of the company at which the annual accounts are laid, and the auditors so appointed shall hold office until the conclusion of that meeting.

(3) If the directors fail to exercise their powers under sub-article (2), the powers may be exercised by the company in general meeting.

(4) If no auditors are appointed or re-appointed as required by the foregoing sub-articles of this article, the court on an application made by any of the directors or by any member of the company or by the Registrar may appoint a person to fill the vacancy.

(5) In the case specified in sub-article (4), the company shall within two weeks of the general meeting at which an auditor or auditors should have been appointed by virtue of sub-article (1), give notice to the Registrar that his power to apply to the court has become exercisable.

(6) If a company fails to give the notice required by sub-articles

(5) or (9), every officer of the company who is in default shall be liable to an administrative penalty and for every day during which the default persists, to a further administrative penalty.

(7) Any contractual clause restricting the choice by the general meeting of the company pursuant to sub-article (1) to certain categories or lists of statutory auditors or audit firms as regards the appointment of a particular statutory auditor or audit firm to carry out the statutory audit of the company shall be prohibited. Any such existing clause shall be null and void.

(8) For the purposes of the application of this article, for the appointment of auditors or audit firms by public-interest entities, the conditions set out in Article 16(2) to (6) of the Audit Regulation, and those in the relative sectoral legislation regulating each particular type of public-interest entity, shall apply.

(9) When the first auditor of the company is appointed and whenever a new auditor is appointed following a resignation or removal of a previous auditor, the company shall, within fourteen (14) days from the said appointment, submit to the Registrar for registration a return in the prescribed form, by means of which the Registrar is notified with the name and surname and warrant registration number of the appointed auditor.