On 18 March 2021 the government published the white paper consultation, Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance, which is open for comment until 8 July 2021. Its aim is to reform audit regulation and the audit regulators in the wake of high profile corporate failures such as Carillion. 

Company directors should also note that its aim is to reform corporate governance standards too. In particular, it includes new powers of enforcement against all directors of ‘large public interest entities’ (PIEs) whenever there is a corporate failure.

So what is a PIE?

The consultation paper proposes two options: