
Section 4: Financial Statements
83
•
The section of the Annual Report that describes the review
of effectiveness of risk management and internal control
systems set out on pages 42 to 47; and
•
The section describing the work of the Audit Committee set
out on pages 71 to 74.
Responsibilities of Directors
As explained more fully in the Statement of Directors’
Responsibilities in respect of Annual Report and Financial
Statements set out on page 75, the Directors are responsible
for the preparation of the financial statements and for being
satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such
internal control as the Directors determine is necessary to
enable the preparation of financial statements that are free
from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.
In preparing the financial statements, the Directors are
responsible for assessing the Company’s ability to continue
as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related
to going concern and using the going concern basis of
accounting unless the Directors either intend to liquidate the
Company or to cease operations, or have no realistic
alternative but to do so.
Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial
statements
Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about
whether the financial statements as a whole are free from
material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to
issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion.
Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not
a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs
(UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it
exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are
considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they
could reasonably be expected to influence the economic
decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial
statements.
Explanation as to what extent the audit was considered
capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud
Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of
non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design
procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above,
to detect irregularities, including fraud. The risk of not
detecting a material misstatement due to fraud is higher
than the risk of not detecting one resulting from error, as
fraud may involve deliberate concealment by, for example,
forgery or intentional misrepresentations, or through
collusion. The extent to which our procedures are capable
of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below.
However, the primary responsibility for the prevention and
detection of fraud rests with both those charged with
governance of the Company and management.
•
We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory
frameworks that are applicable to the Company and
determined that the most significant are FRS 102, the
Companies Act 2006, the Listing Rules, the UK Corporate
Governance Code, the Association of Investment
Companies’ Code of Corporate Governance and Statement
of Recommended Practice, section 1158 of the Corporation
Tax Act 2010 and The Companies (Miscellaneous
Reporting) Regulations 2018.
•
We understood how BlackRock Latin America Investment
Trust plc is complying with those frameworks through
discussions with the Audit Committee and Company
Secretary, review of Board and committee meeting minutes
and review of papers provided to the Audit Committee.
•
We assessed the susceptibility of the Company’s financial
statements to material misstatement, including how fraud
might occur by considering the key risks impacting the
financial statements. We identified a fraud risk with respect
to incomplete or inaccurate revenue recognition through
incorrect classification of special dividends as revenue or
capital items in the Income Statement. Further detail of our
approach is set out in the section on key audit matters
above.
•
Based on this understanding we designed our audit
procedures to identify non-compliance with such laws and
regulations. Our procedures involved review of the
reporting to the Directors with respect to the application of
the documented policies and procedures and review of the
financial statements to ensure compliance with the
reporting requirements of the Company.
A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of
the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting
Council’s website at
https://www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities
. This
description forms part of our auditor’s report.
Other matters we are required to address
Following the recommendation from the Audit Committee, we
were appointed by the Company on 29 June 2020 to audit the
financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2020
and subsequent financial periods.
The period of total uninterrupted engagement including
previous renewals and reappointments is four years, covering
the years ended 31 December 2020 to 31 December 2023.