The role of «BIG FOUR» auditing firms in the public procurement market in Ukraine

Abstract

The authors conducted a study aimed to identify the role of «Big Four» («Big 4») audit firms in the public procurement market in Ukraine.The purpose of the article is to answer the questions: whether Ukraine is in a general trend of most countries in the concentration of audit market; what is the share of revenues of the «Big Four» audit firms in the performance of audit services in the public procurement system in Ukraine. First of all, in order to get answers to these questions, the authors conducted a study of the main trends in the development of the «Big Four» companies in Ukraine. It was found that the characteristic competitive environment in the market of audit services, the impact on competitiveness of pricing policy and regulatory requirements, relating to the acquisition of audit services by public sector entities through a public procurement system "ProZorro". An element of price regulation and compliance with the transparent conditions of the competitive environment is the participation of audit firms in the public procurement system. As a result of processing data on procurement of audit services for the period 2008-2019, the authors calculated key indicators that characterize the concentration of the audit market. Based on the data on the amount of remuneration for various types of audit services using the public procurement system "ProZorro", aspects of pricing policy and the role of the companies of the "Big Four" in the market were established. The values indexes indicate that the companies of the «Big 4» do not have a complete monopoly in the segment of procurement of audit services, having certain dominant positions in some years, and the indexes indicate a trend towards effective competition in the audit services market in Ukraine.