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Certified Public Accountants and Auditing Oversight Board (CPAAOB / 公認会計士・監査審査会)

Confidence: Likely Updated 2026-05-25 Review by 2026-11-25 Sources 7 Machine-translated Original (JA)
#JapanFG#regulator#FSA#affiliated-body#audit#accounting
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This entry sits under financial-regulators INDEX. Read it alongside FSA Supervision Bureau and Fsa Inspection Bureau for the supervisory boundary, and against Strategy Development and Management Bureau (FSA Strategy Development and Management Bureau) / FSA Planning and Coordination Bureau for the rule-making and policy interfaces. For the audit-firm side, anchor through Ey Shinnihon · Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu LLC (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu) · Kpmg Azsa · PwC Japan LLC (formerly PwC Arata) (Big 4) and Taiyo Grant Thornton · BDO Sanyu Audit Corporation (BDO Sanyu) (mid-tier). License perimeter via Financial licenses.

  • Governing law: Certified Public Accountants Act, Article 35 (establishment of the Board), and the Act for Establishment of the Financial Services Agency
  • Affiliation: an attached organization of the Financial Services Agency (an external bureau of the Cabinet Office) — positioned not in parallel with the Supervision Bureau, the Strategy and Policy Bureau, or the Planning and Coordination Bureau, but as an independent oversight board
  • Headquarters location: Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo (within the FSA main building)
  • Board composition: a chairperson 1 名 + up to 9 名 members, appointed by the Prime Minister with the consent of both Houses — composed of certified public accountants, legal practitioners, corporate-accounting practitioners, and persons of academic experience

2.1 CPA Examination

  • Conducting the short-answer examination (2 times a year) + the essay examination (1 times a year)
  • Appointment of examiners, preparation of examination questions, and pass/fail determination — exclusively operating the entry-point gate of Japan’s accounting profession

2.2 Audit Firm Inspection

2.3 Quality Control Review

  • A two-tier structure in which the CPAAOB additionally conducts monitoring of the results of JICPA’s quality control review (peer review)

2.4 International cooperation

  • A member of IFIAR (International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators) — a network of global audit-oversight authorities

3. Linkage of inspection results with disciplinary action

In the flow of CPAAOB inspection / recommendation → the FSA Commissioner’s disciplinary decision, major disciplinary cases include the following (for details of each case, see the individual audit-firm pages):

  • ChuoAoyama Audit Corporation (following the Kanebo window-dressing case, a 2 -month suspension of operations from 2006-07-01〜08-31 → renamed Misuzu Audit Corporation in 09-01 the same year, dissolved 2007-07 . PwC established Aarata Audit Corporation as the receiving body in 2006-06 ) — a symbolic case right after the CPAAOB’s launch
  • Disciplinary action related to the Toshiba case against Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC (now Ey Shinnihon) (2015-12-22, a 3 -month suspension of new-contract-conclusion operations [2016-01-01〜03-31] + a business improvement order + a surcharge of approx. 21 億円 — the first surcharge against an audit firm)
  • Numerous improvement orders for deficiencies in the quality-control systems of mid-tier and small/medium audit firms

4. Division of roles with JICPA

FunctionCPAAOBJICPA (Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants)
CPA examinationAdministration & pass/fail determinationRecommendation of examiners
RegistrationSupervisionRegistration affairs
Quality control reviewMonitoring (secondary)Peer review (primary)
Ethics / self-regulationSupervisionDiscipline (self-regulation)
InspectionHolds the authorityDisciplinary investigation
International cooperationIFIARIFAC

5. Position in governance

  • Differs in subject from the bank / securities / insurance inspection of the FSA Supervision Bureau (FSA Supervision Bureau) — the CPAAOB covers audit quality, the Supervision Bureau covers the financial institutions themselves
  • The FSA Inspection Bureau (Fsa Inspection Bureau) was merged into the Supervision Bureau in 2018 年, but the CPAAOB was not subject to that merger — it maintains its status as an independent oversight board
  • Relationship with the Business Accounting Council (a separate council of the Cabinet Office) — a division of labor in which the Business Accounting Council sets auditing standards and the CPAAOB inspects audit quality

Sources