1. The PCAOB’s ability to select engagements, audit areas and potential violations to be reviewed or investigated;
   
   
2. The PCAOB’s access to, and its ability to retain and use, any document or information (including through conducting interviews and testimony) in the possession, custody or control of the firm(s) or any associated persons thereof that the board considers relevant to an inspection or investigation; and
   
   
3. The PCAOB’s ability to conduct inspections and investigations in a manner consistent with the provisions of the act and the rules of the board, as interpreted and applied by the board.
   
   

The PCAOB's proposed rule allows these determinations to be applied both to individual firms and entire jurisdictions. The latter determination would be applied when the obstacles to completing inspections and investigations are not specific to individual registered firms, but instead reflect threshold or general positions taken by a foreign authority. In such cases, the PCAOB believes that it should be able to address those obstacles on a jurisdiction-wide basis in a consistent manner and in a single determination. Under those circumstances, separate determinations as to each registered firm in the jurisdiction should not be required. The PCAOB believes most determinations will be jurisdiction-wide, and that firm-specific ones will be less common.

In the event that a foreign authority obstructs a board inspection or an investigation of a particular firm headquartered in the jurisdiction—but does not obstruct inspections or investigations in a more general manner that might apply to all firms in the jurisdiction—proposed subparagraph (a)(2) provides the PCAOB  with an avenue for making a more tailored determination under the HFCAA when a jurisdiction-wide determination might be inappropriately broad.

The PCAOB will have discretion to make these determinations, but it will review such decisions on an at least annual basis to see whether facts and circumstances have changed.

“Cooperation between the PCAOB and our international counterparts is vital to facilitating meaningful audit oversight and to strengthening investor protection," said PCAOB Chairman William D. Duhnke III. "This rule will enable the PCAOB to fulfill its responsibilities under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, a law passed with extraordinary bipartisan support.”