The Annual General Meeting on 16 May 2019 appointed Deloitte GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, Munich, as auditor for the annual financial statements, as group auditor, and as auditor for the review of interim financial reports, to the extent that these are subjected to a review, for fiscal year 2019.
The nomination was preceded by an examination of independence. This ruled out any business, financial, personal and other relations between auditors and their corporate bodies as well as chief auditors on the one hand and LEONI AG as well as members of its corporate bodies on the other hand that might give cause to doubt the independence of the auditor. Deloitte issued a correspondingly binding declaration of independence in this respect.
The Supervisory Board furthermore agreed with the auditor that the latter would be notified without delay of findings and occurrences material to its duties that arise during execution of the audit. Accordingly, the auditors are obliged to advise the Supervisory Board, or note in their audit report, if pieces of information are found that point to incorrectness in the declaration pursuant to the Code submitted by the Management and Supervisory Board.
Deloitte audited and granted an unqualified certificate for the 2019 financial statements of LEONI AG as well as the consolidated financial statements and the combined management report.
The auditors responsible pursuant to Section 319a (1) sentence 4 of the German Commercial Code (HGB) were Sebastian Kiesewetter and Alexander Hofmann (both starting with the 2019 financial statements).
The following expenses were recognised in the past financial year for work performed by the auditors appointed to audit the financial statements and consolidated financial statements as at 31 December 2019: € 1,427 k (previous year: € 1,187 k) for the audit and € 891 k (previous year: € 100 k) for other assurance services. In the previous year these services were performed by Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft Ernst & Young GmbH amounting to € 99 k for tax consulting services and € 148 k for other services.