Accreditation Committee November 17, :00-12:30 Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort Nassau, Bahamas Arawak A Room. Minutes

Transcription

1 Final May 25, 2013 INTERNATIONAL ACTUARIAL ASSOCIATION Accreditation Committee November 17, :00-12:30 Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort Nassau, Bahamas Arawak A Room Minutes Present: Chairperson: Erik Alm (Svenska Aktuarieföreningen) Vice-chairpersons: Ken Hohman (American Academy of Actuaries) Chris Lewis (Actuaries Institute Australia) Secretary: Christian Levac Réjean Besner, Canadian Institute of Actuaries (by conference call) Steve Eadie, Society of Actuaries Ricardo Frischtak, Instituto Brasileiro de Atuária Ron Hersmis, Het Actuarieel Genootschap Curtis Huntington, American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries Tsutomu Igararashi, Institute of Actuaries of Japan Barbara Lautzenheiser, Conference of Consulting Actuaries David Martin, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Mary Frances Miller, Casualty Actuarial Society Guillaume Moussa, Deutsche Aktuarvereinigung e. V. (by conference call) Hong-Yi Yang, Actuarial Institute of Chinese Taipei Observers: Thomas Béhar, EC Liaison Peter Doyle, Chairperson, Professionalism Committee Ben Kemp, General Counsel, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Bob McKay, Canadian Institute of Actuaries John Newman, Actuaries Institute Australia Michael Pomery, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries

2 2 1. Approval of Minutes of Los Angeles Meeting The meeting was called to order and the chairperson asked everyone to introduce themselves. There were no new committee members in attendance at this meeting. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as presented. s The minutes will be marked as final and posted to the website. 2. Confirmation Forms a) Brazil: Ricardo reported that IBA has modified its Code of Professional Conduct. Mary Frances Miller volunteered to review the documents. s Christian will send the revised documents and past correspondence to Mary Frances for review. Mary Frances will complete the assessment of the Code of Professional Conduct and report back to the committee. b) Mexico: Luis Maria Sáez de Jáuregui Sanz had reviewed the documents submitted by Mexico. The committee confirmed the assessment and confirmed continued compliance. c) South Africa: David reminded members that, prior to the previous meeting, he had reviewed the revised Discipline Process from the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA). He had confirmed compliance with all but one aspect of the regulations, which is the requirement for an independent appeal process. David reviewed further correspondence from ASSA and its legal counsel, which had confirmed that the appeal process available to ASSA members was to seek recourse from the courts. He asked whether this met the IAA requirements. Peter Doyle provided further details on the ASSA discipline process for the committee. The majority of committee members felt that the appeal s process was adequate based on Peter s explanation, but it was suggested that a formal response from ASSA would be helpful. Another possible issue raised was that the decision at the third stage (mediation, arbitration or appeal) was taken by the discipline committee and not by the member. It was also noted that perhaps requirement (g) (iii) of the Internal Regulations was not suitably worded. s David and Peter will liaise on the issues raised and will report back to the committee. Ken and Erik will review the document called Considerations in the Design of a Discipline Process. (Secretarial note: no action needs to be taken as ASSA has now submitted its revised disciplinary process for review) d) Switzerland: Guillaume Moussa had reviewed the documents submitted by the Swiss association. The committee confirmed the assessment and confirmed continued compliance.

3 e) United Kingdom: Chris reported the revised UK Code had been reviewed last year and two issues had been raised. At the last meeting, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFA) had reported that the UK Code had been re-written and had taken into account the comments from the Accreditation Committee (AC). The IFA sought to have the AC confirm compliance prior to finalizing its approval process. Chris indicated that the two issues had been addressed in the latest revision of the UK Code. It was also suggested to recommend to the Irish Society, which follows the UK Code, to incorporate the same revisions. Once the IFA has finalized its changes to the Code, it should submit the Code for a formal review and approval by the AC. s Christian will prepare a letter for the Irish Society. (Secretarial note: the UK Code will be revised by the time of the meetings in Singapore. Ireland will incorporate the same revisions to its documentation following approval of these changes) 3 f) Status Report on Membership Dues Christian reported on the following statistics with regards to membership dues: 1 year 2 years 3 years Full Members Associate Members It was recommended that Erik report to Council that the Institute of Actuaries Cameroon s dues were outstanding three years, and that unless payment was made by 31 January 2013, then the association would be removed as an Associate Member for non-payment of dues. Christian will prepare a letter for the association in Cameroon advising them that their membership status was in jeopardy for non-payment of dues. g) 2012 Confirmation Form The revisions for the 2012 form were discussed. It was suggested to add a supplementary note under 3 (a) asking if the association has changed their response from No to Yes, then they must submit their process for review. Several minor changes were recommended. It was noted that, in the future, item 3 will need to be amended to ask member associations how they have implemented the approval of ISAPs. Peter Doyle indicated that the Professionalism Committee (PC) had already discussed this issue and will be preparing a draft for approval at their meeting in The Hague.

4 Christian will complete the modifications to the confirmation form and circulate to the leadership for review before it is sent to Full Members. Following its meeting in The Hague, the PC will provide the AC with its proposed wording for the ISAP questions for discussion in Singapore Lessons Learned from Self-Assessment and Outstanding Issues Erik reported that there are 3 outstanding issues. One of them is a very small association which has some minor issues related to its discipline process. A change in the leadership of the association has lengthened the time needed in getting the matter resolved. The second issue relates to an association which has a code of conduct that only applies to members working in the area governed by the association. It does not comply with the IAA requirements and we will recommend that the association ask members to sign a document that would ensure compliance with the association s code and discipline process, whether they are working in the area of jurisdiction or not. The issue of the third association relates to the translation of their governance documents which may require changes in government regulations. With regards to the lessons-learned from the self-assessment process, Erik noted that the last sentence of (f) (v) which states An actuary must be familiar with the current requirements of the applicable code(s) of professional conduct., should be removed in the next revision to the Internal Regulations because half of the associations do not state this explicitly in their Code. The committee accepted this suggestion. Erik also noted that we must clarify the meaning of standards. This question arises from the situation of one association that indicated it does not promulgate standards, yet its website contains guidance notes which appear, in fact, to be standards, but there is no process for adopting standards. The association realizes it should have a process in place. Chris also noted that (f) (xi) should be amended because having this requirement may be breaching a citizen s right to a legal appeal. Christian will make the necessary adjustments to the Internal Regulations, circulate them to the leadership of the AC and then submit them to the Executive Committee for approval and recommendation to Council. 4. Full and Associate Membership Applications a) Colombia: Ricardo reported on his review of the Colombian application. There was only one point relating to the independence of the appeal, which needed to be rectified in the accreditation criteria. Mary Frances reported from the Education Committee perspective that there were a few areas that required modifications to the association s admission process. The motion for admission as a Full Member will be removed from the Council agenda.

5 Christian will send a communication to the Colombian association outlining the remaining areas of concern. 5 b) Turkey: Ken reviewed the statutes and code from the Turkish association and identified a number of problems with the discipline process. It was suggested that the word conforms be changed to does not conflict with in the General requirements section of the assessment form and also that a question relating to the statutory definition of a fully qualified actuary be added The motion for admission as a Full Member will be removed from the Council agenda. Christian will amend the assessment form accordingly. Once we have received the education assessment, a letter will be prepared for the Turkish association. c) Senegal: Erik reported that the assessment met the IAA requirements and the committee confirmed its support for the association to be admitted as an Associate Member. d) Update on other upcoming applications Chile: Erik reported that representatives of the Chilean association had met with himself and Mary Frances, as well as with three members of the Latin American Subcommittee. The meeting was productive and we were able to inform the association of the requirements for admission as a Full Member. South Korea: We have not yet received a formal application from the Institute of Actuaries of Korea; however, they have already submitted their education questionnaire which Steve and Tomio Murata are reviewing. Christian will send to Steve the letter from Ed Robinson from the prior assessment of the IAK. Romania: We have been informed that the Romanian association has submitted an application for admission in the Groupe Consultatif (GC) and will also submit an application for Full Member status in the IAA in Other Business Mary Frances reported that the GC had approved its new education syllabus. An assessment of the GC syllabus will be undertaken by the Education Committee. The GC review process will be

6 approved in September 2013, which will not allow us enough time to review it prior to the Singapore meeting. The recognition of the GC syllabus will allow us to avoid duplication of work and perform only one education assessment. Christian briefed the committee on the discussions with legal counsel with regards to the issue of non-compliance of member associations and the pending changes to the Internal Regulations which had been discussed at the meeting in Los Angeles. The matter has now been returned to the Executive Committee for further consideration. Erik informed the committee that this was Chris Lewis last meeting. On behalf of the committee, he thanked Chris for his many years of service on the Accreditation Committee. 6. Next Meeting There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at noon. The next meeting will take place in The Hague, Netherlands on May Respectfully submitted, Christian Levac