The recently amended Article 33 of Directive 2013/34/EU requires that the members of the administrative, management and supervisory bodies of an undertaking have the collective responsibility for ensuring that both the financial and sustainability reportings comply to the digitalisation requirements laid down in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/815 (ESEF). Auditors also need to opine on the conformity of the digital reports.

In this context, it is important that digital reports and related audit opinions (files), as legal documents, are protected to ensure that reports have not been tampered with.

The “Digital Signatures in XBRL” Working Group of XBRL International has released a draft requirements document as a consultation open for comments until 7 July 2023.

We strongly encourage interested parties in Europe and specifically software vendors and regulators to review this important “requirements document” and provide comments to XBRL International.