The European Commission has started legal action against four of its member states for failing to implement a directive aimed at bolstering the quality of auditing and accounting in the trading bloc.

The four countries in the firing line are Austria, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. The Commission said in a statement that they had failed to transfer Europe’s Statutory Audit Directive into national law.

The Directive is a response to past corporate scandals. It requires member states to create independent oversight bodies to monitor their national audit professions. It also clarifies the duties of external auditors and sets out a number of ethical principles to ensure the independence and objectivity of their work.

Member states were supposed to have copied the Directive’s measures into their national laws by June last year.

The Commission has also stepped up the pressure on six member states for failing to implement a different accounting rule. The countries have been given a “reasoned opinion”—the last step before court action—telling them to hurry up and implement a Directive that raises the maximum thresholds that countries can apply to certain accounting disclosure requirements, including the need to publish a separate corporate governance statement in their accounts.

These rules should have been implemented by September last year. The laggard countries are Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, and—again—Ireland. The Commission said it will start legal action if they do not comply within two months.

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