STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE 3. Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Court has audited: (a) the annual accounts of the Agency, which comprise the financial statements (3) and the reports on the implementation of the budget (4) for the financial year ended 31 December 2014; and (b) the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying those accounts. The management’s responsibility 4. The management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the annual accounts of the Agency and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions (5). (a) The management’s responsibilities in respect of the Agency's annual accounts include designing, implementing and maintaining an internal control system relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error; selecting and applying appropriate accounting policies on the basis of the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer (6); making accounting estimates that are reasonable in the circumstances. The Executive Director approves the annual accounts of the Agency after its accounting officer has prepared them on the basis of all available information and established a note to accompany the accounts in which he declares, inter alia, that he has reasonable assurance that they present a true and fair view of the financial position of the Agency in all material respects. (b) The management’s responsibilities in respect of the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions and compliance with the principle of sound financial management consist of designing, implementing and maintaining an effective and efficient internal control system comprising adequate supervision and appropriate measures to prevent irregularities and fraud and, if necessary, legal proceedings to recover funds wrongly paid or used. The auditor’s responsibility 5. The Court’s responsibility is, on the basis of its audit, to provide the European Parliament and the Council (7) with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The Court conducts its audit in accordance with the IFAC International Standards on Auditing and Codes of Ethics and the INTOSAI International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions. These standards require the Court to plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the annual accounts of the Agency are free from material misstatement and the transactions underlying them are legal and regular. 6. The audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgement, which is based on an assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts and material non-compliance by the underlying transactions with the requirements in the legal framework of the European Union, whether due to fraud or error. In assessing these risks, the auditor considers any internal controls relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of the accounts, as well as the supervisory and control systems that are implemented to ensure the legality and regularity of underlying transactions, and designs audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The audit also entails evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies, the reasonableness of accounting estimates and the overall presentation of the accounts. In preparing this report and statement of assurance, the Court considered the audit work of the independent external auditor performed on the Agency’s accounts as stipulated in Article 208(4) of the EU Financial Regulation (8). 7. The Court considers that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for its statement of assurance. Opinion on the reliability of the accounts 8. In the Court’s opinion, the annual accounts of the Agency present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as at 31 December 2014 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer. Opinion on the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts 9. In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014 are legal and regular in all material respects. Emphasis of matter in relation to the reliability of the accounts 10. Without calling into question the opinion expressed in paragraph 8, the Court draws attention to the valuation of the Schengen Information System (SIS II), the Visa Information System (VIS) and Eurodac (systems) in the Agency’s accounts. The operational management of these systems is the Agency’s core task. In the absence of reliable and complete information in respect of their total development cost, they are recorded in the Agency’s accounts at their net book values as per the Commission’s books and updated at year end (approximately 6,6 million euro at date of transfer and 2,1 million euro at 31 December 2014). These values relate mainly to hardware and off-the-shelf software components and do not include software development costs (see note 6.3.1 to the annual accounts of the Agency).