Bureau Veritas (you knew it would be them, right?) just issued a whopping NINE certificates to a deep-pocketed company in the United Arab Emirates (you knew they would be involved, too, right?) Not only does that defy all belief, but at least two of the certs were against ISO guidance documents, and not actual certification standards.
It’s One Less than Ten
Thomas Pramotedham (l), Alok Malik (r)
AI company Presight is blasting the paid press release circuit with their bullshit story about how Bureau Veritas granted the nine certs, quoting two people who — I suspect — will soon regret having had their names plastered all over this. One is BV auditor Alok Malik, one of those underpaid Indians who go to live in UAE to make it rich. The other is Presight CEO and chin-shopper Thomas Pramotedham, who totally doesn’t look like a guy who totally knows he bought totally bogus certificates.
Two of the nine certificates sloppily printed officially issued by BV include ISO 31000 and ISO 37000, two standards that are just “guidance” documents. This means that BV can’t issue certificates to them, but they did anyway because Alok Malik desperately needs to buy a hairpiece.
The other standards exchanged for a bag of cash awarded to Presight are ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, and ISO 22301. Because, why not?
Accreditation Conformity is a Flexible Concept
Making matters worse (worser?) is the fact that Bureau Veritas Middle East isn’t even accredited to issue all those certificates in the first place.
According to the Bureau Veritas Middle East website, the Abu Dhabi office is subject to UKAS accreditation. In checking the UKAS website, that office is only accredited to issue four certificates: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and a food safety management system standard. They are not accredited for any of the other standards, like ISO 27001 or ISO 27701. Have a look at the actual UKAS scope of accreditation:
And, there’s clearly no accreditation scheme at all for 31000 and 37000. So only three of the “nine” certs were actually accredited, making Bureau Veritas a (wait for it) … certificate mill.
Now, we don’t have the actual certs in hand, and I doubt Chinless Tom will publish them, so we can’t know if BV is releasing these certificates with the UKAS logo or other accreditation mark. Maybe they aren’t, but I wouldn’t put it past the Middle East office of Bureau Veritas to do it. However, the press release suggests that all nine certificates were issued at once. This is a problem because CBs like Bureau Veritas cannot combine an accredited audit alongside a non-accredited audit.
So (again) the entire thing is suspect. Nothing about this story makes sense, and it screams fraud.
Will UKAS do anything? Doubtful. UKAS just ruled that consultants can sell CB services alongside their consulting services, even though ISO 17021-1 literally says the opposite. So, as long as Bureau Veritas is paying UKAS its accreditation fees, we can’t expect anyone to start doing their job.
Fun aside: according to Presight’s press release, the (fake) ISO 37000 certification ensures they are “promoting transparency, accountability, and ethical conduct” within their organization. Sure you are! We all believe you.
Totally!
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
