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Accountant excluded from both ACCA and ICAEW

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13th Nov 2013
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An accountant banned from the ACCA in 2011 has also been excluded from the ICAEW for two years and fined £2,500.

Laurence Cowan, sole practitioner of firm Laurie Cowan, held dual membership at both institutes and was banned from ACCA for three complaints.

Now the ICAEW disciplinary committee has banned him too.

An ACCA appeal committee in 2011 heard how Cowan was found guilty of misconduct for signing audit reports in his firm’s name on five occasions when he wasn’t authorised to do so. However his firm’s official stationery stated he was authorised by the ICAEW to carry out company audit work when he wasn’t. He also failed to provide information to the ACCA so it complete its monitoring programme.

 Cowan had issued 13 audit reports in his firm’s name when it wasn’t actually audit registered, contrary to the Companies Act 2006.

The ICAEW followed up with four more complaints against the accountant, who was not present at the ICAEW disciplinary hearing.

The committe reported that Cowan applied to ICAEW fpr audit registration in 2010, but the professional body asked him for standard details of audit work he carried out during the last two years as he was not seen as a “responsible individual” at the time.

Cowan was registered with ACCA for audit, he said, but wished to switch his registration to the ICAEW. But ACCA records show that the practitioner’s audit registration had ended in June 2008.

Since ceasing to be audit-registered, he had signed a further five audit reports. He told the ICAEW that he didn’t get word from ACCA that his audit registration had ended.

Cowan's ICAEW audit registration application was deferred pending the ACCA investigation. It later emerged that Cowan had received correspondence from ACCA about both his practising certificate and audit registration.

The ICAEW’s complaints against Cowan included the claim on his official stationery that he was registered for company audit work by the ICAEW. He had said at a previous hearing that the document was a sample template and never sent to anyone else, but this assertion was rejected by the ACCA.

Cowan failing to provide information required by ACCA to complete its monitoring programme and issuing 13 audit reports between 2011 and 2012 and not being registered by any supervisory body.

The ICAEW’s tribunal agreed with the ACCA findings, saying: “The tribunal were satisfied that the facts set out above, in relation to the first three heads of complaint, were sufficient to show conduct which would be likely to bring discredit to the defendant, the Institute or the profession.”

Aggravating features included the length of time over which he committed the offences and Cowan’s lack of co-operation with the investigation.

But, the accountant was dealing with the ill-health of a family member and had no previous disciplinary record.

“The ACCA breaches were serious and indicated that the defendant’s standards had fallen well below that of a chartered accountant. In addition, the tribunal took into account that the provision of audit reports when not a registered auditor was a particularly serious matter which, in the event, Mr Cowan had failed to address in any of his submissions,” the tribunal report concluded.

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Replies (4)

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By far2complicated
13th Nov 2013 11:54

Its official stationery, not stationary.

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By stephen.fia.org.uk
13th Nov 2013 15:52

Tribunal is singular!

... and it's "the tribunal was satisfied", not "the tribunal were satisfied", or should be. Why is everything pluralised these days?

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By Rachael White
13th Nov 2013 16:06

That's an official ICAEW quote - not my wording! :) 

Thanks for the suggestion though.

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By Mouse007
13th Nov 2013 18:25

(sic)

required then

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