Report of the statutory auditor on the consolidated financial statements
As statutory auditor, we have audited the consolidated financial statements of Clariant Ltd, which comprise the consolidated balance sheet, consolidated income statement, consolidated statement of comprehensive income, consolidated statement of changes in equity, consolidated statements of cash flows and notes (pages 148 to 211), for the year ended 31 December 2015.
Board of Directors’ Responsibility
The Board of Directors is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the consolidated financial statements in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the requirements of Swiss law. This responsibility includes designing, implementing and maintaining an internal control system relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of consolidated financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. The Board of Directors is further responsible for selecting and applying appropriate accounting policies and making accounting estimates that are reasonable under the circumstances.
Auditor’s Responsibility
Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these consolidated financial statements based on our audit. We conducted our audit in accordance with Swiss law and Swiss Auditing Standards as well as the International Standards on Auditing. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether the consolidated financial statements are free from material misstatement.
An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers the internal control system relevant to the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the consolidated financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal control system. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of the accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.
Opinion
In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2015 give a true and fair view of the financial position, the results of operations and the cash flows in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and comply with Swiss law.
Report on other legal requirements
We confirm that we meet the legal requirements on licensing according to the Auditor Oversight Act (AOA) and independence (article 728 CO) and that there are no circumstances incompatible with our independence.
In accordance with article 728a paragraph 1 item 3 CO and Swiss Auditing Standard 890, we confirm that an internal control system exists which has been designed for the preparation of consolidated financial statements according to the instructions of the Board of Directors.
We recommend that the consolidated financial statements submitted to you be approved.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd
Basel, 15 February 2016
PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd
St. Jakobs-Strasse 25, Postfach
4002 Basel, Switzerland
Telephone: +41 58 792 51 00
Facsimile: +41 58 792 51 10
www.pwc.ch
PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd is a member of the global PricewaterhouseCoopers network of firms, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity.
The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are international accounting standards. VIEW ENTIRE GLOSSARY