Artículo 3. Nature of the Company

.10 Obtaining an understanding of the nature of the company includes understanding: The company's organizational structure and management personnel; The sources of funding of the company's operations and investment activities, including the company's capital structure, noncapital funding ( e.g. , subordinated debt or dependencies on supplier financing), and other debt instruments; The company's significant investments, including equity method investments, joint ventures, and variable interest entities; The company's operating characteristics, including its size and complexity; Note: The size and complexity of a company might affect the risks of misstatement and how the company addresses those risks. The company's operating characteristics, including its size and complexity; Note: The size and complexity of a company might affect the risks of misstatement and how the company addresses those risks. The sources of the company's earnings, including the relative profitability of key products and services; and Key supplier and customer relationships. .10A To assist in obtaining information for identifying and assessing risks of material misstatement of the financial statements associated with a company's financial relationships and transactions with its executive officers ( e.g. , executive compensation, including perquisites, and any other arrangements), the auditor should perform procedures to obtain an understanding of the company's financial relationships and transactions with its executive officers. The procedures should be designed to identify risks of material misstatement and should include, but not be limited to (1) reading the employment and compensation contracts between the company and its executive officers and (2) reading the proxy statements and other relevant company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory agencies that relate to the company's financial relationships and transactions with its executive officers. .11 As part of obtaining an understanding of the company as required by paragraph .07, the auditor should consider performing the following procedures and the extent to which the procedures should be performed: Reading public information about the company relevant to the evaluation of the likelihood of material financial statement misstatements and, in an integrated audit, the effectiveness of the company's internal control over financial reporting, e.g. , company-issued press releases, company-prepared presentation materials for analysts or investor groups, and analyst reports; Observing or reading transcripts of earnings calls and, to the extent publicly available, other meetings with investors or rating agencies; Obtaining an understanding of compensation arrangements with senior management other than executive officers referred to in paragraph .10A, including incentive compensation arrangements, changes or adjustments to those arrangements, and special bonuses; Obtaining information about trading activity in the company's securities and holdings in the company's securities by significant holders to identify potentially significant unusual developments ( e.g. , from Forms 3, 4, 5, 13D, and 13G); Inquiring of the chair of the compensation committee, or the compensation committee's equivalent, and any compensation consultants engaged by either the compensation committee or the company regarding the structuring of the company's compensation for executive officers; and Obtaining an understanding of established policies and procedures regarding the authorization and approval of executive officer expense reimbursements. .11A If the auditor serves as a referred-to auditor in a divided-responsibility audit, 7A as part of obtaining an understanding of the company, the referred-to auditor should consider making inquiries of the lead auditor as to matters that may be significant to the referred-to auditor’s own audit. Such matters may include transactions, adjustments, or other matters that have come to the attention of the lead auditor and that may require adjustment to or disclosure in the financial statements audited by the referred-to auditor.