Consob requires audit firms to submit a control form, summarizing the main data and information acquired in the course of their statutory auditing activities. The control form consists of two documents: a general section and a summary overview (Communication No. 95002349 of 22 March 1995, as amended and supplemented).

As fixed in the most recent communication published on the subject on 15 March 2012, the signatory of the audit report must submit the aforementioned form to Consob by the 20^th day following the date of issuance of the report on the statutory and consolidated financial statements (Communication No. 12019297of 15 March 2012).

The audit form has been updated and the new release is already available as of 5 March 2024, on Consob's website, in the "Operator Services/Interactive Services/Forms/Audit Firms" section of the website.

The update concerns the section referred to as "Other information" in the summary table. More specifically, the request enclosed in the sub-section on "Information regarding the possession of SME status" was eliminated, in order to adapt the form to the regulatory changes made to Article no. 2-ter of Consob Regulation No. 11971/1999 ("Issuers' Regulation").

In addition, the section was supplemented with the introduction of two new sub-sections related to (i) "Supervisory priorities and climate risk"; (ii) "Provisions of EU Delegated Regulation 2019/815."

The first sub-section introduced contains specific questions asking the auditor to indicate whether the impacts of climate risks on the financial statements and the supervisory priorities for financial reporting contained in the ESMA document "European common enforcement priorities" applicable to the reporting year of the audited financial statements have been deemed relevant by the Issuer (in accordance with IAS 1).

The questions in the second sub-section introduced relate to the fulfilments required of Issuers by the provisions of the EU Delegated Regulation 2019/815 of 17 December 2018 (European Single Electronic Format - ESEF Regulation), which introduced a single electronic reporting format for the annual financial reports of issuers listed on regulated markets in the EU. Specifically, the auditor is required to indicate whether the annual financial statements have been drafted in XHTML format, and whether the consolidated financial statements, in addition to being drafted in XHTML format, have been marked up in all significant features, in accordance with the provisions of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/815.