The Board documents the manner in which it ensures the quality of the financial reports and how it communicates with the company’s auditor.
The Board ensures the quality of financial accounting through its Audit Committee. The Audit Committee considers not only critical accounting questions and the financial reports presented by the company, but also matters of internal control, regulatory compliance, potential material uncertainty in reported values, post-statement events, changes in assessments and evaluations and other circumstances that may affect the quality of the financial statements. The auditors have participated in six regular meetings of the Audit Committee. They have not participated in meetings when the election of external auditors has been discussed.
The entire Board reviews the interim reports before they are published.
The company’s auditor attends the Board meeting at which the annual accounts are approved.
The Board has met with the auditor to discuss his review of the company for the financial year 2011. The Board has also met on one occasion with the auditor wihout the presence of the CEO or any other member of the Group Management.
The Board's report on internal control of the financial reporting is found on pages 139-140 of the Annual Report 2011.