ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court said: “SMSF auditors have a critical role in upholding the integrity of the SMSF sector through annual audits. They oversee over 610,000 SMSFs, representing more than $875 billion in funds. SMSF auditors play an essential role in supporting confidence in the SMSF sector, and ASIC will continue to take action where their conduct is inadequate.”

Over the quarter, ASIC disqualified three SMSF auditors, imposed additional conditions on five SMSF auditors, and cancelled the registration of three SMSF auditors.

ASIC said that Carlo Celisano, Eamon Lynch and Brian Townhill were disqualified from being SMSF auditors. Their names have been placed on ASIC’s public banned and disqualified register and are not eligible to reapply for registration.

Anthony Boys, Laurence Carwardine, Gurjeet Singh, Bruno Sternberg and Mark Turner had additional conditions imposed on their SMSF auditor registration.

“Conditions are specific to the auditor (see the SMSF Auditor register), and can require undertaking additional professional development, passing the SMSF auditor competency exam, having independent reviews of SMSF audit files and/or audit tools, templates and methodology, performing independence threat and safeguard evaluation and notifying their professional accounting association of the additional conditions,” ASIC said.

Jeffrey Leahy, James Ulrich and Lou Varalla had their SMSF auditor registration cancelled.

All 11 SMSF auditors were referred to ASIC by the ATO. This follows the 41 SMSF auditors the ATO referred to ASIC during the 2022–23 financial year, the highest rate in five years.

It is also a jump from the previous quarter, during which ASIC took action against eight SMSF auditors.

“In the last year, ASIC has acted against 26 SMSF auditors who failed to meet the independence and auditing standards, or whose conduct called into question the integrity of SMSF audits,” said ASIC commissioner Danielle Press at the time.

“The SMSF sector holds more than $865 billion in assets in over 600,000 funds and it is crucial that SMSF auditors comply with their regulatory obligations. ASIC will continue to take action where the conduct of SMSF auditors is inadequate.”