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Independent Auditor's Report
Description of responsibilities regarding the financial statements
Heineken N.V.
Annual Report 2020
Introduction
Report of the
Executive Board
Report of the
Supervisory Board
Financial
Statements
Sustainability
Review
Other
Information
Responsibilities of the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board for the financial statements
The Executive Board is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in
accordance with EU-IFRS and Part 9 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code. Furthermore, the Executive Board is
responsible for such internal control as the Executive Board determines is necessary to enable the preparation
of the financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.
As part of the preparation of the financial statements, the Executive Board is responsible for assessing the
Company's ability to continue as a going concern. Based on the financial reporting frameworks mentioned,
the Executive Board should prepare the financial statements using the going concern basis of accounting
unless the Executive Board either intends to liquidate the Company or to cease operations, or has no realistic
alternative but to do so.
The Executive Board should disclose events and circumstances that may cast significant doubt on the
Company's ability to continue as a going concern in the financial statements.
The Supervisory Board is responsible for overseeing the Company's financial reporting process.
Our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements
Our objective is to plan and perform the audit assignment in a manner that allows us to obtain sufficient and
appropriate audit evidence for our opinion.
Our audit has been performed with a high, but not absolute, level of assurance, which means we may not
detect all material errors and fraud during our audit.
- Concluding on the appropriateness of management's use of the going concern basis of accounting, and
based on the audit evidence obtained, whether a material uncertainty exists related to events or conditions
that may cast significant doubt on the Company's ability to continue as a going concern. If we conclude
that a material uncertainty exists, we are required to draw attention in our auditor's report to the related
disclosures in the financial statements or, if such disclosures are inadequate, to modify our opinion.
Our conclusions are based on the audit evidence obtained up to the date of our auditor's report. However,
future events or conditions may cause the Company to cease to continue as a going concern.
- Evaluating the overall presentation, structure and content of the financial statements, including
the disclosures.
- Evaluating whether the financial statements represent the underlying transactions and events in a manner
that achieves fair presentation.
We communicate with the Supervisory Board regarding, among other matters, the planned scope and
timing of the audit and significant audit findings, including any significant findings in internal control that
we identified during our audit. In this respect we also submit an additional report to the audit committee in
accordance with Article 11 of the EU Regulation on specific requirements regarding statutory audit of public-
interest entities. The information included in this additional report is consistent with our audit opinion in this
auditor's report.
We provide the supervisory board with a statement that we have complied with relevant ethical requirements
regarding independence, and to communicate with them all relationships and other matters that may
reasonably be thought to bear on our independence, and where applicable, related safeguards.
Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, Amsterdam, 9 February 2021
they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these Deloitte Accountants B.V. Initials for identification purposes:
financial statements. The materiality affects the nature, timing and extent of our audit procedures and the
evaluation of the effect of identified misstatements on our opinion.
We have exercised professional judgement and have maintained professional scepticism throughout
the audit, in accordance with Dutch Standards on Auditing, ethical requirements and independence
requirements. Our audit included e.g.:
L. Albers
- Identifying and assessing the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to
fraud or error, designing and performing audit procedures responsive to those risks, and obtaining audit
evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. The risk of not detecting
a material misstatement resulting from fraud is higher than for one resulting from error, as fraud may
involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal control.
- Obtaining an understanding of internal control relevant to the audit 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 Company's internal control.
- Evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting
estimates and related disclosures made by management.
