Every contract for advisory services, non-audit services, or audit services conducted by external auditors executed by any government or private entity that receives public funds in excess of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) a year shall include provisions establishing that:
(a) The auditor shall not perform managerial or decision-making functions pertaining to the management of the entity.
(b) The auditors contracted as consultants or to perform non-audit services shall not provide audit services, management consulting functions, payroll processing, accounting or bookkeeping, valuation services and appraisals, actuarial services, activities deemed proper to the management or administrators of the entity, recruiting and human resources services, stockbroker services, and others of a similar nature.
(c) The employees of the auditing firm or the external auditor who shall render the consulting service, shall not participate in the planning of the audit, perform the audit or the review of related work.
(d) The contract shall not limit the scope and extent of the audit to a level inferior to that which would have been performed if another firm or external auditor would have rendered the consulting services.
(e) The peer review system of the external auditors office for matters related to its independence, shall include standards and procedures to consider the effects of the consulting services or non-audit services in present and future auditing services.
(f) The external auditor shall have the obligation to report and deliver to the auditor who performs the peer review audit of his or her office this contract for advisory services or non audit services or any other, and all the files corresponding to the audits made of the entity, if any.
(g) The audit report rendered by the external auditor shall contain a section that includes his/her opinions about whether or not the recommendations of the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico have been implemented, and the corrective actions regarding findings stated in previous reports have been made.
History —Sept. 10, 2003, No. 273, § 2; Oct. 17, 2009, No. 124, § 1.