Since the last update, five Tribunal Committee tribunal orders, six Conduct Committee consent orders, one Conduct Committee fixed penalty order and four settlement orders have been published.
Included within the latest published orders are the following:
Tribunal Committee tribunal orders
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Failure to cooperate with the Practice Assurance Committee
A member failed to cooperate with the Practice Assurance Committee by not submitting the results of the external money laundering compliance review to ICAEW by the required deadline.
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Principal of a firm entering administration
A member was a director of a firm when it entered administration.
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Failure to cooperate with regulatory requests
A member was found to have failed to provide required information, explanations, and documents in response to a formal request from ICAEW.
AND
Another member was found to have failed to provide required information, explanations, and documents in response to a formal request from ICAEW.
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Misrepresentation of exam results
A provisional member represented to their employer an incorrect examination mark and modified the examination result on an ICAEW exam report and presented it to their employer.
Conduct Committee consent orders
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Breach of audit regulations
A member firm failed to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in respect of cost of sales and/or prepayments and/or accrued expenses for one year of audit of an entity, contrary to the requirements of ISA 500 ‘Audit Evidence’.
AND
A member firm failed to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in respect of opening balances in the first year of audit for three entities, in breach of ISA 510 ‘Initial Audit Engagements – Opening Balances’.
AND
A member firm failed to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in respect of prepayments and accrued income and/or accrued liabilities for one year of audit of an entity, and also failed to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence in respect of investments in subsidiaries for one year of audit of another entity. Both instances were in breach of ISA 500 ‘Audit Evidence’.
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Compliance matters
A member failed to ensure and/or cause a formal complaint to be adequately investigated by a person in the firm with sufficient seniority.
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Failure to comply with regulations
A member firm failed to ensure that it complied with various anti-money laundering regulations, including that it failed to establish and maintain appropriate and risk-sensitive policies and procedures relating to customer due diligence measures and monitoring and risk assessment were applied on all clients, and/or that it did not take appropriate measures to ensure its employees were made aware of the legislation; given training or did not maintain a written record of the measure taken in relation to training offered; and/or that there was inadequate and/or no evaluation of the adequacy and effectiveness of the firm’s policies, controls and procedures; and that it did not establish and maintain and apply appropriate risk assessment procedures for identifying higher risk clients. The firm also failed to ensure that it complied with various Clients’ Money Regulations.
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Breach of Client Assets rules
A member firm issued reasonable assurance reports on Client Assets to the FCA when the reports failed to comply with various FCA SUP rules and/or various requirements of the FRC Client Asset Assurance Standard.
Conduct Committee fixed penalty order
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Compliance matters
A member used the description “Chartered Accountants” for their firm when it was not eligible to do so.
Settlement orders
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Incomplete tax returns
A member submitted incomplete Self Assessment Tax Returns for a client for three years when they knew that some of the information was incomplete and they did not indicate that the returns contained provisional or estimated figures.
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Compliance matters
A member engaged in public practice without holding a practising certificate, failed to ensure their firm was supervised by an appropriate anti-money laundering supervisory authority, engaged in public practice without professional indemnity insurance, failed to notify the Members’ Registrar of ICAEW within the required timeframe of changes to their firm, and carried out probate activities on an estate without a licence from an approved regulator or licensing authority.
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Submission of work
A provisional member submitted their Level 7 project report for assessment which incorporated unpublished work created by another person.
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Failure to report
A member failed to report Covid financial support scheme fraud to the Directors Conduct Reporting Service.
Key themes
- Failure to cooperate with ICAEW
- Breaches of technical standards
- Non-compliance with AML supervision and failure to notify ICAEW of firm formation or changes
- Regulatory compliance breaches including the failure to have professional indemnity insurance, and breaches of the anti-money laundering regulations
- Being a principal of a firm engaged in public practice which entered into administration
- Provisional member exams and assessment submissions
Further details can be found on our Disciplinary Database or please visit our Public Hearings page.
Useful links
Please make use of the following resources to ensure you are up to date with the latest regulatory information and news.
- ICAEW Ethics hub
- ICAEW’s Regulation hub
- Disciplinary Bye-laws
- Regulatory & Conduct news - subscribe to stay up to date on latest regulatory news or follow us on our dedicated Regulation and Conduct LinkedIn channel.
