Client Acceptance and Conflicts

Contacting us, sending a message through the contact form, having a preliminary conversation or receiving a proposal from us does not create a client relationship. No engagement exists, and we accept no responsibility for any matter, until we have completed the checks described below and both parties have agreed a written scope and engagement terms.

This matters practically: if you are working to a regulatory or transaction deadline, the acceptance stage takes time, and you should not assume work has started until you have written confirmation from us that it has.

Before accepting an engagement we check whether acting for you would conflict with our duties to another client, or whether our own interests could compromise our objectivity. That check covers the client, the subject of the review and, where relevant, identified counterparties.

Where a conflict is identified, we take one of three courses:

• Decline. Where the conflict is direct and cannot be managed, we decline the engagement and say so.
• Manage with consent. Where a conflict can be managed by information barriers or separate teams, we explain the arrangement and proceed only with the informed written consent of the parties affected.
• Limit the scope. Where only part of the proposed work creates a conflict, we may offer a narrower scope that excludes it.

Conflicts can also emerge mid-engagement, for example when a review identifies a party we already act for. If that happens we stop, tell you promptly, and agree how to proceed before continuing.

Independent review only has value if the reviewer is genuinely independent. We do not accept commission, referral fees or any other benefit contingent on the conclusions we reach, and our fees are never contingent on a particular finding or outcome. Where we have previously designed or implemented a control, we will not then present ourselves as an independent reviewer of that same control, and we will disclose the prior involvement rather than obscure it.

Where we are engaged by one adviser on behalf of their client, the reporting lines and who our client actually is are recorded in the engagement terms before work starts. Our professional cooperation page describes how those arrangements work.

We may decline an enquiry without giving detailed reasons. Common grounds include that the work falls outside our professional boundaries, that we lack the specific capability, that a conflict cannot be managed, that the timeframe would compromise the quality of the review, or that the requested outcome is predetermined.

We may also withdraw from a live engagement, having given reasonable notice, if a conflict emerges that cannot be managed, if information we rely on proves materially inaccurate, if we are asked to alter findings that the evidence supports, or if continuing would place us in breach of a legal or professional obligation.

Information you provide while we assess an enquiry is treated as confidential, and that duty applies whether or not we go on to act. We retain only what we need to evidence the acceptance decision. How we handle personal data is set out in our privacy and data protection notice.

Because we cannot control what reaches us before checks are complete, please keep initial contact at a general level and send documents only once we have confirmed in writing that we are able to receive them.