Professionele aanspreeklikheid van ouditeure teenoor derdes op grond van nalatigheid

Abstract

People in the professional occupations such as auditors, lawyers, architects and engineers have a duty to treat their clients with solicitude. This duty arises from the nature of their calling and from the professional service that they offer their clients. This has led to the situation where members of the professions have increasingly been held responsible for damage suffered by third parties as a result of the neglect of their professionally inherent obligation of solicitude. Fraud scandals, such as those of Enron in the USA and Masterbond, PSC Guaranteed Growth and Tigon locally, have once again caused the focus to fall upon the professional responsibility of auditors.The question that is increasingly being asked is: when and under what circumstances will an auditor be held responsible towards a third party in his professional capacity for the negligent performance of his duties? For the purposes of this article, the focus will only be placed on the responsibility of the auditor on the grounds of his duty to report in terms of section 300 of the Companies Act. The distinctive rules and also the specific application of the general principles of delict in such cases are discussed in this article.