ANAB posted this Heads Up. It will be interesting to see how they will enforce this.

96. Commissions and Incentives to Consultants by Accredited Certification Bodies (http://www.anab.org/HTMLFiles/docs/HeadsUp/HU96.pdf)

The purpose of this issue is to state clearly and unambiguously the position of ANAB about a certification body paying a commission, finder’s fee, or other incentive to a management system consultant.


Can a CB pay a commission, finder’s fee, or other incentive to a management system consultant? The answer is yes, but:a. If this is for an organization NOT consulted by the consultant, the CB may audit and certify the organization without delay. (Essentially, the consultant is acting as a commissioned sales person for the CB.)

b. If this is for an organization that received management system consulting by the consultant, this is perceived as creating an unacceptable threat to the impartiality of certification, based on ANAB Advisory 16 and ISO/IEC 17021:2006, 5.2.7. Therefore, the CB cannot audit or certify this organization for at least two years after the consultancy ended.

As many times as I've been approached by a registrar to steer companies to them in return for a fee over the last 15+ years, I've never accepted. That was my personal position to avoid any conflict of interest problems or accusations.

Enforceable? Nope.

Dear Sir
There is discussion on IRCA on line forum on the topic which is about whether CBs are acting as commercial organization.But coming to the present topic of discussion. The problem is that this practice of paying consultants a sort of commission is prevalent in my oart of the world. I was thinking/hoping that it was there in the deveoped economies.
I feel that payment of commission by the CBs to the consultant who has provided consultancy to the organization & he brings the management of the organization to a CB for business & he gets paid for doing so would most certainly affect the impartiality of the CB. I am positive that the CBs are looking from the commercial angle & tend to be as linient as possible in cases where consultant bring large number companies to them.
Of course the payment can be direct or indirect. For example, a CB has on its panel number of auditors who are also IRCA/RAB approved auditors. The pracice followed is that these auditors audit each others companies & obvoiusly this way impartiality automatically suffers.
What is the solution? No idea. Question is how can any one overcome problems created by certain kind of human nature. It will be really difficult to enforce any king legislation.
As normally happens in life people who do their work sincrely tend to get side lined by the system.