Duties and responsibilities of the Audit Committee are related to the oversight of the company's financial reporting processes and financial reporting, internal control, internal audit and risk management, and to monitoring the audit and compliance procedures of the company. The committee’s work to perform these duties and responsibilities is described below.
Audit Committee
Audit Committee members
Committee work
The Audit Committee reviews the company’s quarterly financial results and interim reports and recommends their approval to the Board. The committee’s results review includes a review of potential significant and unusual transactions, accounting estimates and policies for the period in question. The committee also reviews quarterly reports on assurance and legal matters including status reports on internal control, internal audit, litigations, and other legal proceedings. Other quarterly reports include treasury risk and limits reports and energy risk report.
The lead audit partner attends all committee meetings and provides the committee with a report on the interim procedures and findings as well as an account of the audit and non-audit fees incurred during the quarter. The committee quarterly meets with the internal and statutory auditors without members of the executive management present and holds regular sessions among themselves.
As part of the committee’s compliance review, the committee is provided with a quarterly report by the company’s Chief Compliance Officer and a report of submissions under the Report Misconduct channel. With regard to the effectiveness of the company’s risk management, the committee annually reviews the company’s risk management process and is informed of the top 20 risks as well as group-level strategic risks identified in this process including macroeconomic, political, environmental, compliance and business-specific risks.
The Audit Committee is also responsible for preparing a proposal for the election and remuneration of the auditor. In this respect, the committee evaluates together with the corporate management the qualifications and independence of the statutory auditor annually. This evaluation includes the assessment of the effectiveness of the audit process, quality of audit, performance of the lead auditor and the audit team, and co-operation with the auditor’s international audit network. The committee also arranges tendering processes for audit services at regular intervals to ensure the independence and cost efficiency of the statutory audit.
Committee duties
The Audit Committee's duties and responsibilities are defined in the committee charter and a summary of these is available in the Corporate Governance Statement.
