The International Organization of Securities Commissions said it is studying the use of International Auditing Standards.

IOSCO says it believes that the development of high quality internationally-accepted auditing standards is beneficial to the global capital markets. In order to encourage the development of such standards, it has been actively monitoring the work of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board. IOSCO provides comments on the quality of the IAASB’s proposed standards and the process for setting them, and also provides comments on the board’s agenda.

Its review of proposed auditing standards focuses on whether the standards are likely to contribute to high quality audits and includes: whether the standards are comprehensive and sufficient in scope and whether the standards adequately cover all relevant aspects of the area of audit being addressed; whether the standards are clear and understandable; and, whether they are written in such a way as to be enforceable by regulators .

In recent years, the IAASB has developed and issued a number of new and updated standards, and additional revised standards are expected in 2008.

IOSCO says it’s currently evaluating under what conditions IOSCO could endorse ISAs for use for cross border purposes and the form of such an endorsement. It notes that the IAASB’s responses to public interest concerns in its standards setting will be relevant to such an endorsement.