論財報不實之會計師民事責任

The research on CPA’s civil liabilities for misrepresentations of financial statements

廖庭璉(Ting-Lien Liao)

指導教授 ： 黃銘傑

國立臺灣大學/法律學院/科際整合法律學研究所/碩士(2009年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2009.00774

摘要

自美國恩隆案、我國博達、力霸案以來，接連而來的財報弊案，除了投資大眾對財務報表的信心崩潰，也讓不少企業的CEO、CFO，甚至會計師都面臨了法律訴訟，財務報表不實所涉及的法律責任議題也愈受重視。
財務報表顯示一家企業的財務狀況與經營成果，在公開發行市場中，財務報表也是投資人賴以判斷投資標的之重要工具。財報資訊真實與否，主要係來自於企業管理階層的編製責任，然而，往往大眾都將焦點放在追究會計師的審計責任，而將財務報表的編製責任與會計師的審計責任混淆，而存著某程度的誤解，此誤解通常是源自於因不瞭解審計工作性質與內容，而將會計師的簽證視為保證。其實，審計工作存有限制，除採取抽查方式外，並依據重大性原則進行查核工作，會計師的查核工作是合理確信財務報表無重大不實的表達。也就是說，在重大性原則之下，容許某種程度的誤差。
不過，如果財務報表出現的誤述，是會影響一理性報表使用者的決策時，會計師卻沒有查到，這就意謂會計師可能沒有盡到專業注意義務，而有過失責任。本文試圖探討會計師應盡之注意標準與範圍，如何將審計學上的概念注入法律，作為判斷會計師過失責任成立與否之依據，仍有待法院在累積個案後建立標準。尤其，我國在證券交易法引進比例責任制之後，法院是否會因為無過往會計師將負擔無限的連帶賠償責任，而負擔過重責任的擔憂，轉而易於認定會計師過失責任，值得觀察。

關鍵字

審計工作 ； 專業注意義務 ； 會計師責任限制

並列摘要

The one after another financial scandals like Enron , and Procomp case not only collapse the faith of mass investors to enterprises, but also put many CEOs, CFOs and even CPAs to legal proceedings. Therefore, the topics of law responsibilities which involve with the inaccuracy of financial statements are highly valued.

The operation and financial situation of a company can be shown on financial statements. In public offering market, these statements are crucial tools which investors have to rely on.

The correctness of financial information is the responsibility of management level of enterprises. However, the masses usually look into the auditing responsibility of CPAs and confuse the responsibility of compiling with of auditing financial statements. The misunderstanding usually comes from not realizing the nature and content of auditing and takes auditing of CPAs as a guarantee. In fact, CPAs adopt random inspections and material principles restrict the function of auditing. The auditing of a CPA is to confirm if these financial statements reasonably and honestly represent the real operation and financial situation of a company. In other words, to some extend, inaccuracy is accepted in auditing system.

Even so, the inaccuracy of financial reports definitely infects decisions of users. A CPA is failed to his/her professional obligation and has indiscretion responsibility if the inaccuracy was not been found. My dissertation is to discuss the standard and scope of the due care of CPAs. The court is still building its standard to judge the negligence of CPAs by accumulating cases which integrate the concept of auditing into the judgment of laws. Especially when proportionate liability is adopted by security exchange law to instead joint and several liability in Taiwan, since there is no need to worry about the excessive responsibility of CPAs, it is worth observing if the court will easily sustain the negligence of CPAs

並列關鍵字

audit work ； duty of care ； proportionate liability

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