Mediating Role of Legal Institutions †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Mediating Role of Legal Institutions. Answer: Introduction: The issue that has been mentioned in the question refers to the structure and content of the GHG Emission disclosure that has been mentioned in the sustainability report of the concerned company. The particular structure that has been utilized by the management of Woodside Petroleum Limited is that it has provided sufficient disclosure in its sustainability report in regards to the GHG emission disclosure by the company for the particular financial year of 2017. It has mentioned the product and the description of the product has also been involved in the annual report of the company. The other heads that has been included in GHG emission disclosure are the Taxonomy, project or methodology used to classify product/s as low carbon or to calculate avoided emissions , % revenue from low carbon product/s in the reporting year and % RD low carbon products in the reporting year. Moreover, other relevant information has also been included in the GHG emission disclosure. Furthermore, it has been mentioned in the reports of the organization inn regards to the voluntary disclosures and the related documents have also been attached. In the case of AGL Energy Limited, the disclosure that has been provided in regards to the GHG emission disclosure reflects the fact that the corporate entity is moving towards a carbon constrained future. It has been further mentioned in the sustainability report of the company that the company has a commitment to limit the level of global warming to less than 2 C above pre-industrial levels. The structure and content that has been included in the GHG emission disclosure of the company have been segregated into three methods that have been utilized for the purpose of measuring the GHG emissions of the corporate entity (Agevall, Broberg, Umans, 2018). These methods are as follows: The operational greenhouse gas footprint results in the covering of the emission in regards to the activities or the operations of the company that results in emissions The equity greenhouse gas footprint refers to the share that has been experienced by the company in regards to the emissions from partly or fully owned assets irrespective of the fact that to whom the ownership of the particular asset belongs to. The energy supply greenhouse gas foot print on the other hand leads to the estimation of the supply chain emissions that have been associated with the energy that is sold to the customers of the business entity. However, an issue with the GHG emission disclosure of the company has been that there have been no voluntary disclosures in the sustainability report of the firm in regards to the greenhouse gas or carbon emission for the particular financial year(Agevall, Broberg, Umans, 2018). The particular standard that has been established by the NGER Act is the Clean Energy Regulator leads to the encouragement of the voluntary compliance by emphasizing on providing he required guidance and assistance to their clients for the purpose of understanding the rights, obligations and entitlements. The fundamental standards that have been mentioned by NGER are as follows: Production of energy and consumption has been accurately reported and categorized Reporting and measurement of the emissions regards to flaring has been accurate Reporting of the location of the facility has been accurate. Therefore, it can be evidently concluded that both the corporate enteritis of Woodside Petroleum Limited and AGL Energy Limited has adhered to the standards as established by the NGER Act. However, a particular issue with the sustainability report of the corporate entity of AGL Limited has been that it has not undertaken any voluntary disclosures in regards to the GHG emissions or carbon emission in the GHG emission disclosure of the corporate entity for the stipulated financial year (Agevall, Broberg, Umans, 2018). The NGER audit requirements have been as follows: The audit team is solely responsible for ensuring the fact that the team has the required degree of skills for the purpose of successfully carrying out the all the aspects in regards to the committed management procedures (Agevall, Broberg Umans, 2018). The team leaders should in all probabilities ensure the fact that the audits have been carried out and reported in compliance with the auditing standards as mentioned in the Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards Board. Section 2.5 (c) of the NGR audit determination states the fact that this includes ASAE 3000. Moreover, depending on the subject matter of the audit the auditors might need to apply ASAE 3100, ASAE 3410 and ASAE 3450 (Agevall, Broberg Umans, 2018). The second consideration is that the auditor must be independent of the subject of the audit such as program applicant or project participant to that extent when the conflict of the interest situation does not arise in the audit of the subject matter (Agevall, Broberg Umans, 2018). The type of assurance opinion provided in the sustainability report of Woodside Petroleums sustainability report is that the third party verification or assurance process is in place. The opinion that has been provided in regards to assurance refers to the fact that annual process has limited assurance and that the assurance in regards to the GHG emission disclosure has reasonable assurance. The subject matter for limited assurance has been the full content of the report in regards to the activities of Woodside Petroleum Limited. The Global Reporting Initiatives G4 disclosures has also been the subject matter for limited assurance (Axelsen, Green Ridley, 2017). On the other hand, the subject matter for reasonable assurance are as follows: Anti-bribery and transparency Regulatory compliance Change in climate Prevention of the major incidents Responsiveness in regards to major incidents Health and safety performance The criteria that has been applicable to the report are the Principles for Defining Report Content and the GRI Principles for Ensuring Report Quality and the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) G4 Reporting Guidelines. In case of AGL Energy Limited , the type of assurance opinion that has been provided in the sustainability report of the company has been that of the type pf limited assurance engagement. The subject matter of the report that has been presented in the sustainability framework of the company are as follows: AA1000 principles the particular corporate entity of AGL Energy Limited has applied the accountability principles standard in regards to the management and reporting of the sustainability performance of the company. Sustainability targets of has been another subject matter of audit The reporting criteria has been that the principles of inclusivity; materiality and responsiveness that has been set out in AA1000 APS are applied. The next reporting criteria that has been utilized for the next subject matter of audit are the approaches and the definitions that have been described in the sustainability framework section contained in the sustainability framework of AGL Energy Limited for the financial year of 2016. The assurance standard that has been employed by the auditor is the AA1000 Principles (Axelsen, Green Ridley, 2017). The most important auditing assertions that would be included for the purpose of GHG reporting are as follows: The rights and obligations of the required standards have been met with The completeness of the sustainability report has been met with the required standdads of reporting. The case that has been presented in the question is that CFW Ltd was taken over by Warehousing Ltd. However, the particular fact had been that the auditors had not attended all stocktakes at the year end. There had been discrepancies in regards to the closing balance of the inventories. The inventories had been overvalued and the particular issue that had been raised by the management was that the auditors had been very negligent. The particular case study that can be proceeded with is the Twomax Ltd v Dickson, Mcfarlane Robinson where the cour had given out the particular ruling that the defendant auditor would be liable to make payments for the loss that had been suffered by the company. To be more precise, the third party investors who had trusted in the audited proceedings of the corporate entities had experienced reasonable loss for executing specific decision making skills in regards to the result of the audit. The acquiring company had suffered the majority of the loss due to the fact that the CFW had essentially been taken over by Warehousing Limited on the basis of the inventory balance of the acquired company. However, the overvaluing of the inventories of the acquired company led to a huge loss that had been suffered by Warehousing Limited (Axelsen, Green Ridley, 2017). Moreover another case law that can be discussed in regards to this particular issue is the Haig v Bamford. In this particular case the tests that could be applied for the purpose of proving negligence on the part of the auditor are as follows: Foresee ability in regards to the utilization of the financial statements and the report of the auditor thereon by the plaintiff and reliance thereon The actual knowledge in regards to the class that is limited in relation to the utilization of the financial statements of the corporate entities and reliance on such issued statements Actual knowledge of the specific plaintiff who will utilize and put efficient reliance on the statements. It must be noted here that the above three mentioned tests have been adapted in the common law jurisdiction in order to facilitate an Australian court for finding the persuasive authority for the adoption of any test that it might choose (Schnader, Bedard Cannon, 2015). Therefore, the case that is created against the auditors of the CFW Ltd can be based upon the following major criteria as follows: The auditors did not attend all stocktakes at year-end. CFW were present at those for the Sydney based operations of the company only, this inventory is determined to have been overvalued by 35%. 50% of the inventory of the inventory does not exist and the auditors of the company have not highlighted this fact. The particular fact that Warehousing Limited has the grounds to indicate the fact that the auditors have been negligent should be highlighted in the case. This means that the building of the case should be based upon the fact that the auditors have been negligent. However, it must be noted here that if the act of negligence is not been proved in regards to the case then Warehousing Ltd will not be able to be successful in their legal action. This is due to the fact that if the defendant is able to prove that there was no negligence on his part and the company had committed the discrepancy then the winning of the particular case would be difficult. Moreover, the particular fact that the auditor has raised that there had been much pressure by CFW to complete the audit within one month of the balance date, should be dealt with carefully (Schnader, Bedard Cannon, 2015). If Warehousing Ltd had written to the auditors telling them that they intended to buy CFW and were relying on the audited financial statements to assist them in making their decision then the case would be totally in support of Warehousing Limited. This is due to the fact that the feature of negligence on the part of the auditor could have been proved with much ease (Schnader, Bedard Cannon, 2015). References and Bibliography Agevall, L., Broberg, P., Umans, T. (2018). 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