After a long and hard fight, both in London and Brussels, the UK’s largest companies and their auditors have resigned themselves to a new order of competitive auditor appointments. The notion that a FTSE 100 company can be audited by the same firm for more than a hundred years (Barclays for instance) is now a thing of the past.

Instead, every audit in this highest echelon of corporate Britain will be put through the rigours of a competitive tendering process at least once every 10 years. And even if the incumbent is lucky enough to secure a further 10-year period in office, they will have to step aside after 20 years as they are forced to rotate off the job.