The Competition Commission (CC) has published the full final report of its market investigation into the provision of statutory audit services to large companies in the UK.

A summary of the findings, which include mandatory ten-year tendering for audits and five yearly reviews of every audit engagement in the FTSE350, was released earlier this week.

The report runs to 337 pages, plus appendices. It gives the background to the CC investigation, which began in October 2011 and examined whether there were features of the market for audit services for the UK's biggest companies which resulted in an 'adverse effect on competition'.

The investigation identified issues around barriers in the market which deterred companies from switching auditors or considering the mid-tier firms as well as the Big Four.

This led to the CC developing a number of proposed remedies, which are discussed in detail in the final report, include the mandate for FTSE350 companies to tender audits every ten years, reviews of every audit engagement over a five year period by the Financial Reporting Council's Audit Quality Review team, measures to strengthen the role of the audit committee, and a prohibition on Big Four-only clauses in loan agreements.

The report looks at each remedy in depth, along with evidence provided via surveys, consultation and interviews. The appendices include the terms of reference for the inquiry, case studies of audits, and responses provided to the CC by the Big Four and others.

Both documents are available for download on the CC website via this link: http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/our-work/directory-of-all-inqui...