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| 80) | How should the assurance opinion for the sustainability report prepared pursuant to Article 40a of the Accounting Directive be published? Are there any format requirements? Based on Article 40d(1) of the Accounting Directive, the assurance opinion for the sustainability report prepared pursuant to Article 40a shall be published together with the sustainability report – and, where applicable, the statement mentioned in the fourth subparagraph of Article 40a(2) of the Accounting Directive – within 12 months of the balance sheet date of the financial year for which the report is drawn up, as provided for by each Member State, in accordance with Articles 14 to 28 of the Company Law Directive and, where relevant, in accordance with Article 36 of that Directive. Union law does not currently require specific format requirements for the assurance opinion. However, Article 33a of the Accounting Directive – introduced by the ESAP package (109) – requires subsidiaries and branches subject to Article 40a of the Accounting Directive to submit the sustainability report to the collection body designated by the Member State in a data extractable format together with the relevant accompanying metadata. The Commission is also empowered to adopt implementing measures to specify further metadata to accompany the assurance opinion and to require a machine-readable format.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.