The Dutch Authority for Financial Markets (AFM) plans to investigate Deloitte’s auditing of Steinhoff’s financial statements following revelations of alleged accounting irregularities. Recently South Africa’s Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) revealed it is probing Deloitte South Africa over its auditing of Steinhoff’s financials.

For more on Steinhoff visit: Steinhoff Special

In a statement issued by AFM it said its oversight aims at safeguarding the quality of statutory audits to ensure a proper functioning of capital markets so that the opinions issued by auditors are free from any doubt.

AFM revealed that the the Dutch branch of Deloitte has audited Steinhoff’s financial statements since 2016.  “Deloitte issued a clean opinion over the 2015-2016 Steinhoff Financial Statements. Steinhoff’s management concluded on December 13, 2017 that the 2016 Financial Statements do [sic] no longer meet the requirements as per Dutch law. Following that, Deloitte withdrew its approval to use their audit opinion. The publication of the 2016-2017 financial statements has been postponed”.

In an emailed to CNBC Africa on the IRBA’s probe, Lwazi Bam, Chief Executive of Deloitte Africa said: “On becoming aware of the potential accounting irregularities at Steinhoff International Holdings N.V., Deloitte South Africa, as the auditor of Steinhoff International Holdings Proprietary Limited, issued a Reportable Irregularity to the IRBA on 6 December 2017.

Deloitte confirmed that it is fully cooperating with “the IRBA on this matter and will continue to fulfil its ethical, legal and regulatory obligations”.