By Tarunkumar G. Singhal, Raman Jokhakar Chartered Accountants
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The CA Institute’s continuing professional education (CPE) policy is under the scanner of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).The CCI has directed its investigative arm to probe an allegation that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) was abusing its dominant position by imposing discriminatory conditions on CPE.
The Institute declined to comment on this development even as the CCI probe may affect its revenues from organising seminars and conferences. It is probably for the first time that a nonregulatory function carried out by a regulator (ICAI is the accountancy profession regulator) is under the scanner of another regulator (CCI-competition regulator).
The complainant – Arun Anandagiri – has alleged that the CPE policy was discriminatory as it does not allow any other organisation to provide the service of organising CPE seminars. The CPE policy allowed only the institute’s recognised programme organising unit (POU) to conduct the seminars that carry CPE credits.
There seems to be force in the allegations that the restriction put by the CA institute in not allowing any other organisation to conduct the CPE seminars for CPE credits, the CCI has said in a recent order.
The allegation is that such an approach has created an entry barrier for the other players in the relevant market – “organising recognised CPE seminars/workshops/conferences in India”.
The concept of CPE was introduced by the CA institute for its members to maintain high standards of excellence in the professional activities. According to the CPE policy, chartered accountants (CAs) in practice have to annually attain 20 hours of structured CPE credits and 10 hours of unstructured CPE credits. CAs not holding certificate of practice have to attain 15 hours of unstructured CPE credits annually.
The present case focuses upon the structured CPE credits and organisation of the seminars/conferences/ workshops for obtaining these credits.
(Source: The Hindu dated 12-03-2014)
