Limited Assurance Report of the Independent Auditor regarding the Separate Non-financial Report1
To the Supervisory Board of Aurubis AG, Hamburg
We have performed an independent limited assurance engagement on the non-financial report of Aurubis AG, Hamburg (further „Aurubis“) as well as the by reference qualified parts ”Foundations of the Group” and “Risk and Opportunity Report” of the Combined Management Report (further: „Report“) according to §§ 315b and 315c in conjunction with 289c to 289e German Commercial Code (HGB) for the business year from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019.
Management’s Responsibility
The legal representatives of Aurubis are responsible for the preparation of the Report in accordance with §§ 315b and 315c in conjunction with 289c to 289e HGB.
This responsibility of the legal representatives includes the selection and application of appropriate methods to prepare the Report and the use of assumptions and estimates for individual disclosures which are reasonable under the given circumstances. Furthermore, this responsibility includes designing, implementing and maintaining systems and processes relevant for the preparation of the Report in a way that is free of – intended or unintended – material misstatements.
Independence and quality assurance on the part of the auditing firm
We are independent from the entity in accordance with the requirements of independence and quality assurance set out in legal provisions and professional pronouncements and have fulfilled our additional professional obligations in accordance with these requirements.
Our audit firm applies the national statutory provisions and professional pronouncements for quality assurance, in particular the Professional Code for German Public Auditors and Chartered Accountants (in Germany) and the quality assurance standard of the German Institute of Public Auditors (Institut der Wirtschaftsprüfer, IDW) regarding quality assurance requirements in audit practice (IDW QS 1).
Practitioner’s Responsibility
Our responsibility is to express a conclusion on the Report based on our work performed within our limited assurance engagement.
We conducted our work in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 (Revised): “Assurance Engagements other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information” published by IAASB. This Standard requires that we plan and perform the assurance engagement to obtain limited assurance whether any matters have come to our attention that cause us to believe that the Report of the entity for the business year October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019 has not been prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with §§ 315b and 315c in conjunction with 289c to 289e HGB. We do not, however, provide a separate conclusion for each disclosure. In a limited assurance engagement the evidence gathering procedures are more limited than in a reasonable assurance engagement and therefore significantly less assurance is obtained than in a reasonable assurance engagement. The choice of audit procedures is subject to the auditor’s own judgement.
Within the scope of our engagement, we performed amongst others the following assurance procedures:
- Inquiries of personnel on corporate level, who are responsible for the materiality analysis, in order to gain an understanding of the processes for determining material sustainability topics and respective reporting boundaries of Aurubis
- A risk analysis, including a media search, to identify relevant information on Aurubis sustainability performance in the reporting period
- Reviewing the suitability of internally developed Reporting Criteria
- Evaluation of the design and implementation of the systems and processes for determining, processing and monitoring disclosures relating to environmental, employee and social matters, respect for human rights, and combating corruption and bribery, including the consolidation of the data
- Inquiries of personnel on corporate level who are responsible for determining disclosures on concepts, due diligence processes, results and risks, for conducting internal controls and consolidation of the disclosures
- Evaluation of selected internal and external documentation
- Analytical evaluation of data and trends of quantitative information which are reported by all sites for consolidation on corporate level
- Evaluation of local data collection, validation and reporting processes as well as the reliability of reported data based on a sample of the site in Lünen (Germany)
- Assessment of the overall presentation of the disclosures
Conclusion
Based on the procedures performed and the evidence obtained, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the Report of Aurubis for the business year from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019 is not prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with §§ 315b and 315c in conjunction with 289c to 289e HGB.
Restriction of Use/Clause on General Engagement Terms
This report is issued for purposes of the Supervisory Board of Aurubis AG, Hamburg, only. We assume no responsibility with regard to any third parties.
Our assignment for the Supervisory Board of Aurubis AG, Hamburg and professional liability is governed by the General Engagement Terms for Wirtschaftsprüfer and Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften (Allgemeine Auftragsbedingungen für Wirtschaftsprüfer und Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften) in the version dated January 1, 2017 (www.kpmg.de/bescheinigungen/lib/aab_english.pdf). By reading and using the information contained in this report, each recipient confirms notice of provisions of the General Engagement Terms (including the limitation of our liability for negligence to EUR 4 million as stipulated in No. 9) and accepts the validity of the General Engagement Terms with respect to us.
Hamburg, 10.12.2019
KPMG AG
Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
Laue ppa. Mathias
Wirtschaftsprüfer
(German Public Auditor)
1 Our engagement applied to the German version of the Report. This text is a translation of the Independent Assurance Report issued in the German, whereas the German text is authoritative.