Oct. 25th
Ha! Ha! Ha! I could go to Beijing again. The National Audit Conference was held in Beijing on Oct. 26th & 27th. I booked the flight back on Oct. 29th and thought I could enjoy a weekend in Beijing.
Oct. 26th & 27th
All the managers and above from mainland and Hong Kong offices were gathered in Beijing for the conference. I thought there are about 600-700 people. I can't believe I met Quincy, who worked with us in Toronto Office. I knew he went back to Hong Kong, but did not expected to see him so quickly. It was amazing when we saw each other in the elevator.
Different offices work for the same client but different branches also use this opportunity to meet together to communicate fees and audit issues. I was invloved in the group meeting of a Japanese Bank, which has branches in HK, Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Wuxi, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. It was a new experience for me to share the thoughts with people from different offices.
Needless to say, I met a lot of new people and exchanged a lot of business cards in the two days conference.
Bilingual slides were used in the conference. I was very interested in the general introduction about the growth of revenue and size in the past couple of years, and the future plan of the firm in China. Another thing I was interested was the comparison of SOX 404 with so called "China SOX" ("C-SOX"). China is on initiatives to align with world's best practices, and to enhance the quality of listed companies. Per China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), Management should conduct regular self assessment over the internal controls of the company from the following perspectives:
- Comprehensiveness;
- Appropriateness; and
- Operating effectiveness
And external auditors should verify, evaluate and report over (1) management's internal controls self assessment and (2) the effectiveness of the underlying internal controls of the company.
This is applicable to all public companies listed in Chinese Mainland Exchanges in Shanghai (SSE) & Shenzhen (SZE). The management self assessment is the BOD's responsibility while in SOX 404, it is the CEO & CFO's responsibilities. SSE's and SZE's Directives have specific coverage on:
- Management & control of subsidiaries;
- Internal control over related parties transactions;
- Guarantees provided to other parties;
- Internal control over capital raised;
- Internal control over major investments;
- Internal control over disclosures
which are not included in SOX 404. The C-SOX frameworks are borrowed and modified from COSO's Enterprise Risk Management but expanded into 8 areas:
- Internal Environment: Risk philosophy and culture of an organization.
- Objective Setting: Setting of strategic objectives based on risk strategy, risk appetite and risk tolerance.
- Event Identification: Identify events (internal and external) that may have negative impact or positive impact
- Risk Assessment: Evaluate events in terms of likelihood and impact that affect the objectives set.
- Risk Response: Identify and evaluate possible responses to risk.
- Control Activities: Policies and procedures established to ensure that directions of management on risk responses are followed in an appropriate manner.
- Information & Communication: Ensuring that necessary information is appropriately communicated throughout an organizations and relevant parties.
- Monitoring: An ongoing process of observing and assessing the effectiveness of Internal Control.
Oct. 28th
I received a call in the morning saying that I need to check my email and review the updated version of Chinese translation of the bond prospectus. I don't have email access at my parents' place, so I called one of my friend and asked if I could work a while at her place ... actually i stayed there for lunch, dinner and a nap in the afternoon.
I arrived her place at 10am but didn't get the email until 6pm. Then I communicated with the lawyer back and forth for a couple of versions and we finally had that done at 10pm.
:'(
:'(
:'(
My weekend in Beijing :'( .................
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