Annual Report 2008

The Code of Ethics for Insolvency Practitioners

The IPC was invited to comment to the Joint Insolvency Committee on the revised draft. Our submission of 30 May stated that, whilst the latest draft was still too long, it was a considerable improvement on its predecessor. We suggested four further amendments to the Code:-

• An explicit recognition of the public interest in the Code and its enforcement;
• A statement that material breach of any of the four fundamental principles in the Code should constitute professional misconduct;
• Clarification of which of the provisions in the Code constituted mandatory requirements, breach of which might lead to disciplinary action; and
• Clarification of a provision which appeared to limit the application of the Code to the giving of advice only to those cases where the advice might lead to an appointment for the IP. We recommended that IPs should be bound by the Code in all cases where they were advising personal debtors, even when the recommended option would not lead to an appointment for the IP.

The JIC accepted the third of these recommendations, but rejected the first two on the grounds that the requested amendments did not feature in the IFAC Code of Ethics on which the new Code for IPs was based. We are still seeking clarification on the last point.