AUDITOR'S REPORT
To: Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of Heineken N.V.
HEINEKEN N.V. ANNUAL REPORT 200f
Report on the financial statements
We have audited the 2008 financial statements of Heineken
N.V., Amsterdam as set out on pages 67 to 143. The financial
statements consist of the consolidated financial statements
and the Company financial statements. The consolidated
financial statements comprise the consolidated balance
sheet as at 31 December 2008, the income statement,
statement of recognised income and expense and statement
of cash flows for the year then ended, and a summary of
significant accounting policies and other explanatory notes.
The Company financial statements comprise the Company
balance sheet as at 31 December 2008, the Company
income statement for the year then ended and the notes.
Management's responsibility
The Executive Board is responsible for the preparation and
fair presentation of the financial statements in accordance
with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted
by the European Union and with Part 9 of Book 2 of the
Netherlands Civil Code, and for the preparation of the report
of the Executive Board in accordance with Part 9 of Book 2
of the Netherlands Civil Code. This responsibility includes:
designing, implementing and maintaining internal control
relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of the
financial statements that are free from material misstatement,
whether due to fraud or error; selecting and applying
appropriate accounting policies; and making accounting
estimates that are reasonable in the circumstances.
Auditor's responsibility
Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the financial
statements based on our audit. We conducted our audit in
accordance with Dutch law. This law requires that we comply
with ethical requirements and plan and perform our audit
to obtain reasonable assurance whether the financial
statements are free from material misstatement.
An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit
evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial
statements. The procedures selected depend on the
auditor's judgement, including the assessment of the
risks of material misstatement of the financial statements,
whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk
assessments, the auditor considers internal control relevant
to the entity's preparation and fair presentation of the
financial statements in order to design audit procedures
that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the
purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of
the entity's internal control. An audit also includes evaluating
the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the
reasonableness of accounting estimates made by
management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation
of the financial statements.
We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is
sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit
opinion.