Audit Monitoring Report

High-quality audits play a pivotal role in building strong organisations, resilient financial markets and robust economies. This is especially true as global economies face constant change and increasing complexity in the regulatory landscape. Reliable audits act as a stabilising force for market participants, improving stakeholder trust, driving investment and economic growth, and generating long-term value. 

For ADGM’s Registration Authority (RA), high-quality audit continues to be a key regulatory objective and focus. ADGM’s RA remains committed to working with audit firms, audit regulators and authorities, both in the UAE and internationally, to ensure meaningful, reliable and timely corporate reporting, enhance audit quality and strengthen corporate reporting.

Last year marked another milestone year for the RA in the field of audit regulation. In 2024, the RA entered the second year of risk-based audit onsite inspections, inspecting seven ADGM audit firms using an in-house developed inspection methodology. The RA also became the 5th full member of the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR).

This Audit Monitoring Report outlines the key findings from the RA’s inspections in 2024, statistics concerning regulatory sanctions, and highlights the areas of focus for the remainder of 2025. A few finding areas from the latest edition are outlined below:

• Group audits: Group-level planning procedures were inadequately conducted.
• Involvement of audit engagement partner and quality of their review: In some cases, quality findings were not identified through the engagement partner review process.
• Going concern: Failure to identify all potential risk factors to going concern led to inadequate audit procedures being performed.

Explore the full report below to learn more about the findings from the inspections in 2024 and learn about the RA's focus areas for the remainder of 2025, or download the report here.