1. General approach for addressing threats to ethics and independence
You may become aware of a situation that could lead to unethical behavior or you might identify some practice that could create the perception that you or your company is acting unethically. As a professional accountant, you have responsibilities to evaluate and address these threats.
The conceptual framework of the Code is a three-step approach to dealing with any issue related to ethics and independence.
- Identify threats2 to the fundamental principles3 and also threats to independence.
- Evaluate each threat.
- Eliminate or reduce the threat to an acceptable level.
Professional accountants should remain alert for new information and exercise professional judgment when identifying threats. The following are examples of threats.
- Receiving a loan from an employer or the inappropriate personal use of corporate assets are threats involving an employee’s self-interest.
- An auditor promoting client shares for a listing on a stock exchange or representing an audit client in a court case are advocacy threats.
Evaluating threats requires significant judgment and we expect in a lot of cases that this evaluation is not done in isolation. Higher level management, boards, audit committees and legal counsel (internal or external) may need to be involved in evaluating threats. Other times, the threats might be simple enough that they can be evaluated by one individual. Either way, the Code is relying on the professional judgment and commitment that all professional accountants have made to perform this evaluation.
The most obvious way to reduce a threat to an acceptable level is to eliminate the circumstances that create the threat. For example, a problematic loan could be repaid. However, eliminating the threat may not always be possible. In this case, threats are addressed by applying effective safeguards – e.g. limiting and tracking the use of corporate assets. The Code highlights that there are some threats that cannot be reduced to an acceptable level by just applying a safeguard, and those threats must be eliminated.
Determining whether a threat has been reduced to an acceptable level requires applying the reasonable and informed third-party test, in that the professional accountant asks themselves: Would an informed and objective third party agree that the threat is at an acceptable level? If, after applying safeguards, the answer to that question is still ‘no’, the professional accountant needs to eliminate the threat; for example, by declining to enter into the arrangement or withdrawing from the service in question, or in the case of a professional accountant in business, resigning from the organization.