The Latvian audit services market: current issues and challenges

New EU rules on statutory audit reform were adopted by the Council of the EU in April 2014. The changes affect all areas of audit regulation, including market competition, auditor oversight, audit quality and application of standards, audit reporting, corporate governance related to auditors, auditor selection and auditor independence. The purpose of this study is to examine the current state and expected changes in the Latvian audit market within the context of EU audit reform. The research methods are respectively systematic, logical and comparative analysis, analysis of secondary data, as well as expert methods. The principal results of the study provide evidence of the high level of market concentration of Latvia’s audit firms/networks, the dominant share of non-audit revenue in total revenue for the four biggest players on the market, the auditing oligopoly in the PIE market, the impact of EU audit reform on auditor-client relationships, and the activities of audit committees in the banking sector. The results of the study indicate that Latvia’s audit firms are not fully transparent. Based on the findings and results of the study, the author proposes a set of recommendations aimed at making the Latvian audit market more transparent and less concentrated.