Audit partner
(ii) Audit partner means a partner or persons in an equivalent position, other than a partner who consults with others on the audit engagement team during the audit, review, or attestation engagement regarding technical or industry-specific issues, transactions, or events, who is a member of the audit engagement team who has responsibility for decision-making on significant auditing, accounting, and reporting matters that affect the financial statements, or who maintains regular contact with management and the audit committee and includes the following: (A) The lead or coordinating audit partner having primary responsibility for the audit or review (the lead partner); (B) The partner conducting a quality review under applicable professional standards and any applicable rules of the Commission to evaluate the significant judgments and the related conclusions reached in forming the overall conclusion on the audit or review engagement (Engagement Quality Reviewer or Engagement Quality Control Reviewer); (C) Other audit engagement team partners who provide more than ten hours of audit, review, or attest services in connection with the annual or interim consolidated financial statements of the issuer or an investment company registered under section 8 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-8); and (D) Other audit engagement team partners who serve as the lead partner in connection with any audit or review related to the annual or interim financial statements of a subsidiary of the issuer whose assets or revenues constitute 20% or more of the assets or revenues of the issuer's respective consolidated assets or revenues. (8) Chain of command means all persons who: (i) Supervise or have direct management responsibility for the audit, including at all successively senior levels through the accounting firm's chief executive; (ii) Evaluate the performance or recommend the compensation of the audit engagement partner; or (iii) Provide quality control or other oversight of the audit. (9) Close family members means a person's spouse, spousal equivalent, parent, dependent, nondependent child, and sibling. (10) Contingent fee means, except as stated in the next sentence, any fee established for the sale of a product or the performance of any service pursuant to an arrangement in which no fee will be charged unless a specified finding or result is attained, or in which the amount of the fee is otherwise dependent upon the finding or result of such product or service. Solely for the purposes of this section, a fee is not a contingent fee if it is fixed by courts or other public authorities, or, in tax matters, if determined based on the results of judicial proceedings or the findings of governmental agencies. Fees may vary depending, for example, on the complexity of services rendered. (11) Covered persons in the firm means the following partners, principals, shareholders, and employees of an accounting firm: (i) The audit engagement team; (ii) The chain of command; (iii) Any other partner, principal, shareholder, or managerial employee of the accounting firm who has provided ten or more hours of non-audit services to the audit client for the period beginning on the date such services are provided and ending on the date the accounting firm signs the report on the financial statements for the fiscal year during which those services are provided, or who expects to provide ten or more hours of non-audit services to the audit client on a recurring basis; and (iv) Any other partner, principal, or shareholder from an office of the accounting firm in which the lead audit engagement partner primarily practices in connection with the audit. (12) Group means two or more persons who act together for the purposes of acquiring, holding, voting, or disposing of securities of a registrant. (13) Immediate family members means a person's spouse, spousal equivalent, and dependents. (14) Investment company complex. (i) Investment company complex includes: (A) An entity under audit that is an: