APC 2005 Annual Report Download - page 138

136
4
Auditors' Report on the Financial Statements
Free translation of the original report in French
Year ended December 31, 2005
To the shareholders of Schneider Electric SA,
In accordance with the terms of our appointment at the
Annual Shareholders' Meeting, we hereby submit our
report for the year ended December 31, 2004, on :
Our examination of the accompanying financial
statements of Schneider Electric SA.
The basis of our opinion.
The specific procedures and information required
by law.
These financial statements have been approved by
the Board of Directors. Our responsibility is to express
an opinion on the financial statements, based on our
audit.
I - Opinion on the financial statements
We conducted our audit in accordance with the profes-
sional standards applied in France. Those standards
require that we plan and perform our audit to obtain
reasonable assurance that the financial statements
are free of material misstatement. An audit includes
examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the
amounts and disclosures in the financial statements.
An audit also includes assessing the accounting prin-
ciples used and significant estimates made in the
preparation of the financial statements, as well as
evaluating the overall financial statement presentation.
We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis
for our opinion.
In our opinion, the financial statements give a true and
fair view of the assets and liabilities and financial posi-
tion of the Company at December 31, 2005 and the
results of operations for the year then ended in accor-
dance with French generally accepted accounting
principles.
Without qualifying our opinion, we draw attention to a
point outlined in the accounting principles and in note
8b to the financial statements concerning a change in
accounting method for valuing pension obligations.
II - Basis of opinion
In accordance with Article L.823-9 of the Commercial
Code requiring the auditors to explain the basis of their
opinion, we set out below information used in formulat-
ing our audit opinion:
As part of our assessment of the accounting princi-
ples and methods used by your Company, we
obtained assurance that the change in method for
valuing pension obligations was justified and correctly
presented and applied.
As part of our assessment of the accounting princi-
ples and methods used by your Company, we verified
the appropriateness of the principles and methods
used to value shares in subsidiaries and affiliates,
described in the section on accounting principles and
in note 2 to the financial statements, and obtained
assurance that they were correctly applied.
As part of our review of the financial statements taken
as a whole, our assessment of these accounting esti-
mates was included in formulating our audit opinion,
provided above.
III - Specific procedures and information
We have also performed the specific procedures
required by law, in accordance with professional stan-
dards applied in France.
We have no comments to make on the fairness of the
information given in the report of the Board of Direc-
tors and the documents sent to shareholders on the
financial position and financial statements or its con-
sistency with those financial statements.
As required by law, we have also verified that details
of controlling and other interests acquired during the
year and the identity of shareholders and holders of
voting rights are disclosed in the report of the Board
of Directors.
Paris and Neuilly Sur Seine, February 16, 2006
The Statutory Auditors
Mazars & Guérard Barbier Frinault & Autres
Pierre Sardet Christian Chochon
Jean-Louis Simon Pierre Jouanne