IMPLEMENTATION OF THE E-COMMERCE DIRECTIVE - REGULATED PROFESSIONS
Comments from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
May 2002
Under the current draft of the E-Commerce Regulations, there is a requirement for persons who practise a regulated profession to refer to the professional rules which apply to them and to disclose the means by which third parties may access them.
In our view, the requirement for this information to be easily, directly and permanently accessible will require it to be placed in a prominent position on the information service provider's web site. Since ACCA's rules of professional conduct are currently available for inspection by any visitor to our web site, we see no problem in our members referring recipients of their web-based services to the ACCA site. I do not consider that the draft Regulations or the Directive require our members to provide alternative means of accessing these professional rules. We therefore propose to advise our members to refer in their web site messages to the fact that ACCA's rules of professional conduct can be inspected on our web site.
I would highlight a distinction, though, between our rules of professional conduct, which lay down guidance of an essentially ethical character, and more technical guidance - financial reporting standards, statements of auditing standards and publications of a similar nature - which are produced and published by independent standard-setting bodies. This material is not available on ACCA's web site and is only accessible by third parties by means of direct communication with the standard-setting bodies concerned. I would appreciate any comments you might have on our understanding that 'professional rules' is not intended to extend as far as these technical standards.