52. Auditor’s fees for the financial year pursuant to § 314 Section 1 No. 9 of the German Commercial Code (HGB)
KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft invoiced total professional fees in the amount of €4.8 million for services rendered. €4.2 million of this amount were attributable to professional fees for the audit of the financial statements, €0.4 million to other assurance services and €0.2 million to other services. Only services that are consistent with the task of the auditor of the annual financial statements and consolidated financial statements of METRO AG were provided.
The fees for audit services provided by KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft relate to the audit of the consolidated financial statements and the annual financial statements of METRO AG as well as various annual audits and audits of IFRS reporting packages for inclusion in the METRO consolidated financial statements of its subsidiaries, including statutory order extensions. In addition, audit-integrated reviews of interim financial statements as well as project-related IT audits took place.
Other assurance services include contracted audits (for example sales lease agreements, compliance certificates, comfort letters, declaration of completeness of the packaging ordinance), a voluntary audit of the compliance management system and the sales tax compliance management system based on IDW PS 980, a voluntary audit of the corporate responsibility report as per ISAE 3000 and ISAE 3410, a business audit of the non-financial declaration, a limited assurance engagement of the IKS methods and the design of risk control matrices as per (ISAE 3000) and an audit of financial cash basis accounting.
The other services refer to fees for financial due diligences, for a consultancy project on accounting process optimisation, for project management support (without a managerial function) and a workshop on the German Transparency in Wage Structures Act.