LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s accounting watchdog fined BDO 160,000 pounds on Wednesday for unintentional rule breaches in its audit of international insurer AmTrust Europe Limited (AEL), saying auditors should implement a training program.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said the fine was reduced from £200,000 for early acceptance related to audits for 2014 and 2015. The correctness and fairness of the two years’ financial reports were not questioned, and the breach was not intentional, the FRC said.

BDO said it was its first sanction from the FRC and was deeply disappointed that its audit work for AEL fell short of the required standards.

BDO says deficiencies have been addressed and its procedures further strengthened following BDO’s merger with Moore Stephens.

One of the violations related to failures in documentation. Other violations related to claims provisions and the use of independent actuaries as experts.

“The failure in this case is related to an area of ​​high audit risk, namely the consideration of the insurance company’s approach to the terms of its claims,” ​​said Jamie Symington, FRC Deputy Executive Counsel.

“Auditors rely on the opinions of independent expert actuaries without taking adequate steps to obtain an understanding or to evaluate their work.”

Several deficiencies were uncovered in the FRC’s annual check of a 2015 audit sample of a top UK accounting firm, the watchdog said.

The watchdog said the fines, including a reprimand for BDO partner David Roberts, reflect that BDO and Roberts have a good history of compliance and disciplinary records with no prior sanctions.

BDO, among the next tier of auditors from the Big Four auditors of KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PwC, is required to implement a training program to improve how to obtain and evaluate independent actuarial audit evidence.