Impartiality

Bureau Veritas understands the importance of acting with independence in our management system certification activities, and of delivering professional conclusions without bias. On this page, you can find useful resources including our impartiality statement.

Statement of impartiality

“One of Bureau Veritas Certification’s core values and also a key element to our Code of Ethics, is impartiality. It is therefore essential for Bureau Veritas Certification to manage any potential conflict of interest to safeguard the impartiality of Bureau Veritas Certification audit and certification services rendered.

This is in order to protect Bureau Veritas Certification objectivity and brand, ensure customer satisfaction and comply with the rules of accreditation and regulatory bodies.

Bureau Veritas Certification has defined and maintains a strict impartiality policy and monitors this closely through both internal and external impartiality committees established worldwide.”

How we maintain impartiality

Bureau Veritas has processes in place to ensure that all our auditors throughout the world maintain impartiality and integrity. Upon entering employment or becoming a contractor, all auditors must sign a contract that specifies that they have no conflict of interest, and that they will maintain absolute confidentiality. At the same time, they sign Bureau Veritas’ Code of Ethics, which describes the values, principles and rules applicable to all employees and contractors. Regular training sessions for auditors also emphasize the importance of impartiality.

Through an Impartiality Risk Analysis, Bureau Veritas identifies, analyses and documents potential situations of conflict of interests, rising from provision of certification services, including:

  • – relationships among, and common clients across, all parts of Bureau Veritas;
  • –  any significant changes in the certification activities, organization, structure and legal status;
  • – mergers and acquisitions.

Bureau Veritas also manages impartiality through its Impartiality Committees established at local and Holding level. These Committees:

a) assist in developing the policies relating to impartiality of its certification activities;

b) counteract any tendency on the part of Bureau Veritas entity to allow commercial, or other considerations, to prevent consistent and objective provision of certification activities;

c) advise on matters affecting confidence in certification, including openness and public perception;

d) review, at least once a year, impartiality of the audit, certification and decision-making processes of the BVC entity;

e) review evaluation of finances and sources of income for threats to impartiality;

f) review any residual impartiality risk to determine if it is within the level of acceptable risk.

What constitutes a threat to impartiality?

Bureau Veritas maintains vigilance in the face of four main threats to impartiality:

  1.  Self-interest: the threat of a person acting in their own interest rather than that of the organization
  2.  Self-review: whereby a person or body reviews work carried out by themselves. This includes auditing the management systems of a client to whom the certification body has provided management systems consultancy
  3. Trust: threats arising from an auditor or entity being too familiar with the client instead of demanding evidence during the audit
  4.  Intimidation: whereby an auditor believes he or she is coerced openly or implicitly

Bureau Veritas takes its impartiality obligations extremely seriously.

If you are a client of Bureau Veritas certification or other interested party and feel that we have not maintained our impartiality, please contact us and we will respond promptly. You can register a complaint online .