US audit officials have started a fresh round of inspections of New York-listed Chinese companies in recent weeks as tensions mount between the world’s two largest economies.
US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) sent a team to Hong Kong last month to review audit reports from last year of some of the most high-profile Chinese stocks listed in the US, said sources familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified.
About a dozen Chinese firms are to be inspected this time, including Tencent Music Entertainment Group (騰訊音樂娛樂集團), Didi Global Inc (滴滴) and Netease Inc (網易), the sources said.
That is a bigger batch than the inaugural round in the third quarter last year, they added.
The inspection, part of a landmark deal signed last year, comes as the world’s two superpowers escalate their tit-for-tat trade war on technology, from artificial intelligence (AI) to chip manufacturing. US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen is in China, seeking to find areas of common economic ground and open communication channels.
Entities facing the most recent round of checks on their clients include the China units of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), Ernst & Young LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP. Three to four listed clients of each firm were picked, the sources said.
KPMG LLP’s China arm was inspected last year, alongside PwC’s Hong Kong branch.
A spokesperson for the PCAOB declined to comment.
In a May statement, board chair Erica Williams said the agency expected field work to continue this year, with a goal of reviewing companies that account for 99 percent of the market value of US-listed firms that are audited by Hong Kong and Chinese firms.
Unlike the first inspection last year, auditors are on high alert to provide as much detail as possible, after the PCAOB issued a scathing report on their findings of lapses, the sources said.
The combined 38-page report on Beijing-headquartered KPMG and the Hong Kong-based PwC served as a guidebook to highlight which areas PCAOB is concerned about, including insufficient information technology controls or whether there are enough procedures to test revenue or inventory.
However, Williams said in May that it is “not unexpected to find such high rates of deficiencies in jurisdictions that are being inspected for the first time.”
Risks of being kicked off US exchanges have also eased for Chinese companies since last year’s audit.
Despite the escalating regulatory costs and geopolitical tensions, at least 16 companies from China debuted on US capital markets this year, raising a combined US$460 million.
However, only two — sensor technology provider Hesai Group (禾賽科技集團) and online educator Quantasing Group (量子之歌集團) — were audited by the Big Four firms. The rest engaged smaller auditors.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS