The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) is pleased to announce new appointments and re-appointments to take effect on January 1, 2021.

The four new Board Members are:

• Ms. Saadiya Adam (Senior Professional Manager: Standards, Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA), South Africa)
• Prof. Vania Borgerth (Retired accountant and a PhD Candidate in Accountancy, Fucape Business School, Brazil)
• Mr. Sung-Nam Kim (Non-partner advisor, EY Korea, Korea)
• Mrs. Yaoshu Wu (Director of Professional Standards and Technical Guidance Dept., the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CICPA), China)

The following three current Board Members will continue their service for a second term:

• Mr. Brian Friedrich (Principal, friedrich & friedrich corp., Canada)
• Prof. Winifred Kiryabwire (Associate Professor of Law, Makerere University, Uganda)
• Prof. Jens Poll (Audit Committee Chair, Non-Executive/Supervisory Board Member, Germany)

"I welcome such an accomplished group of volunteers to the IESBA,” said Stavros Thomadakis, IESBA Chairman. “As an international standard setter, it is critical we incorporate voices from different cultures and professional backgrounds. Our new Board makeup expands our reach in both areas, and advances our commitment towards gender parity.”

The IESBA also welcomes the appointment of Caroline Lee from Singapore as Deputy Chair for 2021. Ms. Lee has over 30 years of experience in the public accountancy profession and is a partner at KPMG and Asia Pacific Head of Quality & Risk Management. She is also a member of the Singapore Public Accountants Oversight Committee’s Ethics Committee. She has been a Board member of IESBA since January 2017 and of its Planning Committee since January 2019, and has played an instrumental role on its projects to revise the fee-related provisions and Part 4B of the International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including International Independence Standards).

“Ms. Lee has shown an unwavering commitment to the IESBA and to the development of international standards in the public interest,” said Dr. Thomadakis. “I value her insights, expertise and strategic thinking.  I look forward to working together with Caroline in her new role. I also want to thank our departing Deputy Chair Richard Fleck, who has been my close associate and friend and who has contributed decisively and generously to IESBA’s most ambitious projects such as NOCLAR, Long Association, Role and Mindset, and Non-Assurance services.”

About the Nominating Committee

The Nominating Committee makes recommendations to the International Federation of Accountants® (IFAC®) Board and Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB) on the composition of the IAASB and IESBA.

The Nominating Committee is guided in its work by the principle of selecting the most suitable person for the position. In doing so, it endeavors to balance the nominee’s abilities and professional qualifications with the representational needs of the board, such as broad regional and professional representation and gender balance. The PIOB representative observes the selection process for IAASB and IESBA memberships with regular updates to the PIOB. To learn more about the Nominating Committee, visit their website here.

About the IESBA

The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) is an independent global standard-setting board. The IESBA serves the public interest by setting ethics standards, including auditor independence requirements, which seek to raise the bar for ethical conduct and practice for all professional accountants through a robust, globally operable International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including International Independence Standards).

The IESBA believes a single set of high-quality ethics standards enhances the quality and consistency of services provided by professional accountants, thus contributing to public trust and confidence in the accountancy profession. The IESBA sets its standards in the public interest with advice from the IESBA Consultative Advisory Group (CAG) and under the oversight of the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB).

Earlier today, the Staff of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) and the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) jointly released the publication, Using Specialists in the COVID-19 Environment: Including Considerations for Involving Specialists in Audits of Financial Statements.

The publication provides guidance to assist professional accountants in business and in public practice determine when there might be a need to use the services of a specialist to assist in performing specific tasks and other professional activities within their employing organizations, and in serving their clients in the COVID-19 environment. The publication also highlights relevant ethical considerations for accountants when thinking about using a specialist, as well as circumstances that indicate a need for a specialist during an audit of financial statements.

The publication was developed by the Staff of the AICPA under the auspices of a Working Group formed by the IESBA and national ethics standard setters (NSS) from Australia, Canada, China, South Africa, the UK and the US. Chaired by Mr. Richard Fleck, IESBA Deputy Chair, the Working Group’s mandate is to develop implementation support resources to assist accountants effectively apply the International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including International Independence Standards) when facing circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The publication benefited from input from IESBA and IAASB Staff.

The publication can be found on the IESBA’s and IAASB’s COVID-19 resource pages. The Working Group has committed to developing additional COVID-19 guidance in the coming weeks.

About the IESBA-NSS Working Group

The Working Group organizations comprise: APESB (Australia); Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada; the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants; the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (South Africa); the UK Financial Reporting Council; and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (US).

About AICPA

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the world’s largest member association representing the accounting profession. The AICPA’s history of serving the public interest stretches back to 1887. Today, you’ll find 431,000+ members in 130 countries and territories, representing many areas of practice, including business and industry, public practice, government, education and consulting.

About IESBA

The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) is an independent global standard-setting board. The IESBA’s mission is to serve the public interest by setting ethics standards, including auditor independence requirements, which seek to raise the bar for ethical conduct and practice for all professional accountants through a robust, globally operable International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including International Independence Standards) (the Code).

About IAASB

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) develops auditing and assurance standards and guidance for use by all professional accountants under a shared standard-setting process involving the Public Interest Oversight Board, which oversees the activities of the IAASB, and the IAASB Consultative Advisory Group, which provides public interest input into the development of the standards and guidance.

The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) today released revisions to the International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including International Independence Standards) (the Code) to better promote the role and mindset expected of all professional accountants.

The revisions explicitly recognize that the accountancy profession is entrusted with public confidence in the wide-ranging roles it plays in society and that such confidence is based on the skills and values it brings to its professional activities. Importantly, they reaffirm the profession’s responsibility to act in the public interest and the fundamental role of the Code in meeting that responsibility.

Among other matters, the revisions:

• Reinforce aspects of the principles of integrity, objectivity and professional behavior;
• Raise behavioral expectations of all professional accountants through requiring them to have an inquiring mind as they undertake their professional activities;
• Emphasize the importance of accountants being aware of the potential influence of bias in their judgments and decisions; and
• Highlight the supportive role the right organizational culture can play in promoting ethical conduct and business.

“The ethical principles and behavioral expectations embodied in the Code are the bedrock of the accountancy profession,” said Dr. Stavros Thomadakis, IESBA Chairman. “The profession is a major player in the global financial ecosystem and an indispensable facilitator of economic growth. The enhancements we have made to the Code speak to the importance of protecting and strengthening public trust in it across its varied roles and activities.”

Throughout this project, the IESBA has benefited from coordination with the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and the former International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) on issues common to their standards, and especially in developing the provisions addressing the mindset expected of professional accountants.

The “role and mindset” revisions will become effective on December 31, 2021.

About the IESBA

The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) is an independent global standard-setting board. The IESBA serves the public interest by setting ethics standards, including auditor independence requirements, which seek to raise the bar for ethical conduct and practice for all professional accountants through a robust, globally operable International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including International Independence Standards).

The IESBA believes a single set of high-quality ethics standards enhances the quality and consistency of services provided by professional accountants, thus contributing to public trust and confidence in the accountancy profession. The IESBA sets its standards in the public interest with advice from the IESBA Consultative Advisory Group (CAG) and under the oversight of the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB).

Congratulations to the PIOB for the organization’s 15^th anniversary. The PIOB has fulfilled successfully a demanding mandate: to build and operate an oversight framework; to ensure that international standards for audit and ethics embody clear public interest objectives; and respond to the needs of global users, while maintaining clarity and high quality.

The content and influence of the international standards have extended considerably over the period. The PIOB deserves a good share of credit for this achievement. It has followed proactively the planning and execution of standard setting, the due process, the sharpening of public interest language, and objectives. It has been alert and communicative, but at arms-length from the technical work of standard setting.

Looking at the whole system since 2005, I would certainly assess its performance as an overall success—a success premised on a collaborative stance of the PIOB and the Standard Setting Boards in their respective roles.   We should now build on this success as we move onto a new phase with the recommendations for reform that the Monitoring Group has issued, which we welcome.  This seminar is a unique opportunity to discuss ideas and directions for the future. I thank the PIOB for the opportunity.

The deeper challenge underlying the PIOB’s and the Standard Setting Boards’ missions has been to keep abreast of a dynamic public interest—a set of concepts and values varying across space and changing across time. This dynamic has taught both the Boards and the PIOB to remain open to new and evolving needs and perceptions. Corporate failures, financial turbulences, technological disruptions, looming crises such as Climate Change and the COVID-19 pandemic, have spearheaded new and broader perceptions of the public interest.

The Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) agenda defines clear objectives and expectations underpinning the global public interest. This is a development that informs also our more particular notions of public interest. It is all the more critical as we observe new forces towards economic nationalism. These developments create repercussions for international standards, which we need to reflect and strategize on, both as standard setters and overseers of standard setting.

My thinking, taking especially into account the technological disruptions, is that all of us should work to ensure broader adoption and more comprehensive use of the international standards. For that to happen, those standards must be globally applicable. Applicability is an overarching desideratum. International standards must respond to emerging objectives but also push for tangible improvement in practical outcomes. It is important to see the actual positive effects of the standards in real time. In my conversations with many stakeholders, I have realized how pressing and precious this is.

Examples of recent actions that focus on applicability: 

• Closer link between the Standard Setting Boards and National Standard Setters
• Systematic adoption of post-implementation reviews for impactful standards.
• Coordinated initiatives (among the Standard Setting Boards, International Federation of Accountants and the PIOB) aimed at awareness raising, facilitating adoption and providing ease of access and clarity to support effective implementation.
• Widening use of surveys of “users and beneficiaries” of the international standards as a global public good.

In closing, I want to share thoughts on coordination between the IESBA and the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB).

From occasional collaboration, we have moved over the last 4 years to systematic coordination of work. Collaboration at the level of leadership, task forces, staff, and joint meetings of the two Boards. These efforts were initiated with Prof. Arnold Schilder, former IAASB Chairman, and are now being actively pursued under the leadership of Chairman Tom Seidenstein.

In substantive terms, we are moving from seeking “consistency” to building “synergy” of the standards. Our ambition is that our respective standards are not just consistent and non-conflicting, but that they are increasingly becoming mutually reinforcing. This is real progress and creates a strong incentive for users to adopt both sets of standards. This also has implications on future practice including

(a) on how strategies of standard setting are crafted; and

(b) on how oversight is practiced.

In summary, we have to reflect on achieving public interest contributions not of independent parts, as if they were unrelated, but of autonomous parts that are consciously coordinated.

Thank you.

Dr. Stavros Thomadakis

IESBA Chairman

En la fecha de publicación del presente comunicado, el Personal del Consejo de Normas Profesionales y Éticas de Contabilidad (APESB) y del Consejo de Normas Internacionales de Ética para Contadores (IESBA) lanzaron una nueva publicación titulada Applying the Code’s Conceptual Framework in COVID-19 Circumstances: Scenarios in Taxation and Valuation Services (Aplicación del marco conceptual del Código en medio de las circunstancias del covid-19: Situaciones hipotéticas en servicios de tributación y valoración), que da orientación a los contadores profesionales a la hora de aplicar el marco conceptual que aparece en el Código Internacional de Ética para Profesionales de la Contabilidad (que incluye las Normas Internacionales sobre Independencia) (en lo sucesivo, el Código) durante ciertas circunstancias que ha traído consigo la pandemia de covid-19. Dicha publicación utiliza cuatro situaciones hipotéticas que abordan servicios o actividades relacionadas con los servicios de tributación y valoración. Hay dos situaciones hipotéticas que incluyen orientación para contadores profesionales en firmas de contadores públicos y otras dos situaciones hipotéticas que se centran en los contadores profesionales en empresas.

La publicación fue obra del Personal del APESB, como una de las iniciativas de un Grupo de Trabajo que conformaron el IESBA y varios organismos emisores de normas éticas nacionales de Australia, Canadá, China, Sudáfrica, Reino Unido y Estados Unidos. El mandato del Grupo es desarrollar fuentes de información de apoyo para la implementación de normas con el fin de ayudarles a los contadores a aplicar, de manera eficaz, el Código cuando se enfrenten a ciertas circunstancias resultantes de la pandemia de covid-19.

El Grupo lo preside el vicepresidente del IESBA, Richard Fleck, con el apoyo del personal del IESBA y de los organismos emisores de normas nacionales. Entre las organizaciones del Grupo de Trabajo, se cuentan las siguientes: el APESB (Australia), CPA Canadá, el CICPA (Instituto Chino de Contadores Públicos Certificados, por sus siglas en inglés), el IRBA (Consejo Reglamentario Independiente para Auditores, por sus siglas en inglés) de Sudáfrica, el FRC (Consejo de Información Financiera, por sus siglas en inglés) de Reino Unido y el AICPA (Instituto Americano de Contadores Públicos Certificados, por sus siglas en inglés).

La publicación se puede encontrar en la página web de fuentes de información sobre el covid-19 del IESBA, la cual hace las veces de página de destino en la página web del IESBA para temas relacionados con el covid-19. El Grupo de Trabajo se ha comprometido con desarrollar más guías sobre el covid-19 en las semanas venideras.

Acerca de la APESB

El APESB (Consejo de Normas Profesionales y Éticas de Contabilidad, por sus siglas en inglés) se constituyó en 2006 como organismo independiente emisor de normas nacionales en Australia con el objetivo principal de desarrollar normas profesionales y éticas en favor del interés general para los miembros de los tres organismos profesionales de contaduría australianos, a saber: CA ANZ (asociación de Contadores Colegiados de Australia y Nueva Zelanda, por sus siglas en inglés), CPA Australia y el IPA (Instituto de Contadores Públicos, por sus siglas en inglés) de Australia. Los tres organismos profesionales de contaduría son miembros del APESB.

Acerca de la IESBA

El IESBA (Consejo de Normas Internacionales de Ética para Contadores, por sus siglas en inglés) es un consejo de normalización global independiente. La misión del IESBA es trabajar en favor del interés general mediante el establecimiento de normas éticas, tales como las disposiciones obligatorias sobre independencia del auditor, que buscan subir el listón en cuanto a la conducta y la práctica éticas para todos los contadores profesionales mediante un sólido y mundialmente utilizable Código Internacional de Ética para Profesionales de la Contabilidad (que incluye las Normas Internacionales sobre Independencia) (el Código).

“Este documento titulado “El Personal del APESB y del IESBA trabajan conjuntamente en la guía de ética para contadores profesionales que sortean las circunstancias del covid-19” del IAASB, que la International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) publicó en inglés en julio de 2020, lo ha traducido al español el Instituto Nacional de Contadores Públicos de Colombia (INCP) en agosto de 2020 y se utiliza con permiso de la IFAC. El texto aprobado de todas las publicaciones de la IFAC es aquel que la IFAC publique en lengua inglesa. La IFAC no asume responsabilidad por la exactitud y completitud de la traducción ni por ninguna medida que se tome como consecuencia de lo anterior.

Texto en inglés del documento titulado “El Personal del APESB y del IESBA trabajan conjuntamente en la guía de ética para contadores profesionales que sortean las circunstancias del covid-19” © 2020 cuyo autor es la IFAC. Todos los derechos reservados.

Texto en español del documento titulado “El Personal del APESB y del IESBA trabajan conjuntamente en la guía de ética para contadores profesionales que sortean las circunstancias del covid-19” © 2020 cuyo autor es la IFAC. Todos los derechos reservados.

Título original: “APESB and IESBA Staff collaborate on ethics guidance for professional accountants navigating COVID-19 circumstances”.

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