Safeguards to auditor independence against the displacement threat of clients

The purpose of this study is to identify strengthening factors of auditor independence against the displacement threat of clients. In order to achieve a consensus, regarding prior literature, a list of affecting factors on auditor’s independence was extracted and then, thoughts of the experts gathered through questionnaire. The findings showed that all factors extracted from the literature and prior research, including reputation, growing audit firms, the allocation of current audit market by legal authorities, establishing appropriate punishment system in turn of auditors faults, peer review, increasing the knowledge of users of audits service in financial reporting, transparency about the responsibility of independent auditors, requiring auditors to communicate with former auditors partners, mutual responsibilities of partners and audit firms, restriction of the ratio of fees received from a specific client, requiring client to disclose the reasons for auditors change and periodically change of auditors and the lack of change possibility during a period by the clients, affect the independence of auditor’s opinion against the displacement threat of clients, but these factors haven’t been applied properly in the current state of Iranian CPAs yet.